9.23.17

 

I’ve been patient

with this travesty.

It arrives like bad news,

never all at once.

Fours years on,

and I’m enraged

at the permanence.

I sometimes turn corners

slowly fooling myself

that I’ll see you

round the bend,

obscured from sight

by a houseplant,

having been there all the time,

having fooled us

into your missingness.

I imagine visiting your grave

even though nothing is stopping me

from doing so.

The travesty is here.

But the courage is still floating

somewhere in the ether,

drifting in my direction,

I’m sure.

The memory of your funeral

comes to me

like a stray cat. A thousand people

clad in black.

Words from a bible

none of us have read,

a Jesus we don’t believe in,

and a man wearing blue jeans

with the price tag sideways-erect

off a belt loop,

mist collecting

on his brown leather shoes,

and who calls himself

the messenger of god.

We wore gloves

when we lowered you.

They tossed dirt on you

like how dogs fling earth

with their hind legs

upon their defecations.

A woman screamed,

another fell to her knees.

Your mother wept.

Your brother did not.

And your wife was draped

on the shoulder of a man

she had been sleeping with

for some time now.

I don’t recall how I reacted.

But I remember when the sun dipped

low. Shade enveloped us

like a mother; I was afraid.

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Written at 7:45 at night, in my office, in Agoura Hills CA.