No Eulogy

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--

Lavon T. Davis
R. I. P.
(godfather, polio survivor)

--

Mother didn't like the flowers
and the easy laughter
we found at the viewing.
(I think if "ours is a world
of sweets and sours,"
we can afford
some salt for stewing
and mourning after
those who were ours.)

A woman next to me winked,
flipped out her card,
which she gave to me.
She said her house was near
and we could have a drink
(perhaps a beer)
and, wincing, I hardly
thought hard
before I declined.

But she gave to my mother
that same damn card
to sell her wares.
Too polite to say goodbye,
we left the casket and the others
and, wincing, I
went I-know-not-where,
behind gates which barred
us from their brother.

It was not "it,"
but some products for skin
she had for us.
Too polite to say goodbye,
we stayed where we were told to sit
and snarled at the sky,
filthy as dust
and darker than sin--
or what comes from it.

What woman can be so fickle?
What conscience canned?
Christ, what happened here?
--Well, hell, she must not know
Tolstoy's tricky trickle,
That morbid doctrine of woe,
The silly human fear
That we--You, I--can't
Escape the bending sickle.

Mother didn't like the lotion
or the easy dinner
that yanked her from the dead.
I don't blame her,
for the nagging notion
that we were
fawned upon and fed
while others got thinner
is like an execution.

May 15, 2008