RIP Winston Smith: So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing

I want to wake in a clean white place,
listen to the echo of us;

we are seamless, a seascape
of blue-green salty waves

that wash away the soot and grime
from this stained world.

Above us, a murmuration of starlings
blooms, then disappears in a wisp

of black and we become twin suns,
red embers floating to the ocean floor.