My Number v. I had heard it's a fight

 Both the poems "My Number" and "I had heard it's a fight", by Billy Collins and Edwin Derby respectfully, ponder death and the tone that it brings along with it. They differ not only in rhetorical method but in perception of death. The first, "My Number", presents itself differently from the getgo, with the stark and upright title, capitalized, and convicted. The second, in contrast, is lowercased, aloof, and in the past tense. My Number is a personification of death, a disturbing portrayal of the character and its actions and the places it might visit. An overall description of death is given, leading to the image of a dark, brooding figure that comes up frighteningly, invisible, to take away one's life. 

Contrastingly, Derby gives not a personification of death, which would lend itself to an image of death as a figure, but he describes what he felt using imagery. He uses pleasant diction to demonstrate his pleasure in death, often using the word "sweet". 

It is Derby's and Collins' perceptions of death and their approaches towards the inevitable which oppose one another the most. Collin's view is that death is unavoidable, and that one must avoid it. It is revealed in a turning couplet at the end that she is attempting to talk to death and avoid her own. Derby, on the contrary, enjoys the feeling of dying, as evidenced by his imagery, choice of diction, and loosely dreamy tone. He sees death as avoidable, since he mentions that he brushed with death but decided against it "like a cute schoolchild". He invites it, and discusses it as a dreamer would a vision, or an addict would a kicked habit, saying “I can’t get over that minute of dying so quit” in the final couplet, similar in form but not in content to the final couplet of Collins’ poem.