-Left behind-

I held back for a moment

Allowing the mourners to shuffle out;

Soft-talking, respectful smiles,

Handshakes all around as if congratulating

One another on their ability to survive. 

We’d decided on a closed casket

With a framed 8x10 glossy standing

On the lid at the head.

I think it’s the head.

The twenty year old air-brushed color pic

Has him sitting healthy, smiling and leaning

Forward at a severe angle, typical 

To studio portrait photography.

Maybe I should have opted for the Extreme

Measures alternative.

He’d be beeping away in a warm sleep

In the starchy room where I left him to die.

He travelled the distance necessary
Selling the company’s booze everyday

Miles from home where the ocean is,
Where the restaurants thrived in summer
Then shuttered his sales in winter
Returning home through the seasons
Dropping his heavy keys in the milk-
Glass saucer kept for them at the door.

He bequeathed to me

His corner across the active
Street where we lived;

The platitudes of his relations;
The unrealistic assertions of linking
Almost everything I did
For years to come, with him.
He bequeathed to me his half-
Measure of my birth and my youth.

I said: "We'll take this one".

It’s not the most expensive.
It's the least expensive.
It's bronze-colored.
Others were tantalizing,
Whispered as built of exotic woods.
I held back for a moment.

But in the end, I didn’t think
We should waste the money.

                                    Fall River