> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://dianaludwick.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Marrow
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/marrow/
- Published: 2026-10-31T21:38:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-01T19:09:09.000Z
- Description: "Marrow,” a musing on the nearness of death and life on a post-op Halloween day. Written Saturday, October 31, 2026, poem #304 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: "Memento Mori: Cover me in Diamonds for I Die Tomorrow," by Diana Ludwick © 2026.
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Poems, Poetry in Motion, Memento Mori, Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, Laugh, Denmark, Copenhagen, Diamond Dust, Cover Me in Diamonds for I Die Tomorrow, Wisdom Teeth, Extraction, Surgery, Marrow, Fat, Blood, Reflective, So Laugh, Extravagance, Excess, Osso Bucco, Elphin, Wicked, Baker, Polypropylene, Deciduous Leaves, Mortality, Remember You Must Die, Jack-O-Lantern, Iron-tinged Tongue, Surgeon, October, Autumn, Fall

Memento Mori: "Remember you must die."  
\= = =   
Death is near, enjoy the now.  
For we have always known mortality.

On this Halloween morn,  
I awaken, mouth thick-caked with dried blood.   
Though no gauze remains,   
their dry ghosts haunt the ledges of my jaw.  
Black ooze comes from my nostrils,   
I am a sight for a drive-through Forest of Screams fest.

Vanquished molars, two pair,  
drifted from me like deciduous leaves  
(though much less gently)  
have me in Jack-O-Lantern mode  
on this spirited day.

Hands palpate nightstand,   
unable to wrench lids yet open.  
I seek a tumbler of water;  
anything to quench my iron-tinged tongue.

Instead, fingers come across   
a small sharp-edged plastic-front packet.  
Dry eyes open, weary.  
See four bloody bones, two broken:  
fat-smeared and blurry   
behind their polypropylene window  
as if ghoulish goods for sale by a wicked baker.

In my hands I hold  
my own marrow,  
my skeleton  
I cradle my end, in my heart-pulsing palm.  
  
I peer down on my scattering   
of elphin osso bucco   
and I know that I too cannot escape 

*– Remember you must die –* 

The day before, the surgeon had asked me:  
"Do you want to keep the teeth?" 

And I had exclaimed,   
"**YES**!"   
Because they are mine,   
those teeth, my teeth.  
And they remind me,   
starting today,  
that behind this life is death.  
  
So laugh,   
for the love of it.