-Left behind-

I held back for a moment

Allowing the mourners to shuffle out;

Soft-talking, respectful,

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 image

Has him posing in a sharp grey herringbone,
His healthy frame tilting at an impossible angle,
Typical of studio portrait photography,
The red-rouged air-brushed complexion
Close to what I imagined painted his face
Inside the permanent enclosure.

He travelled the distance necessary

Selling the company’s booze everyday

Miles from home to where the ocean is,

Where the restaurants and barrooms
Thrived in summer

Then shuttered his sales in winter.

Returning home through the seasons
And the tedium,

He'd drop his heavy keys in the milk-

Glass saucer reserved for them at the kitchen door.

He bequeathed to me

His space on the 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 half 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,

Promoted as built of exotic woods.

I held back for a moment.

But in the end, I didn’t think

We should waste the insurance money.

                                           Fall River