the lawyer: a story

 























let me tell you a story i heard. it goes like this:
we are just dust, to dust returning. and between--
a story, poorly told. he had leukemia
and he loved men, so when he died it was
the secretary, from the office: she was the one
arguing with his sister about the homosexual body.
the judge decided it ought to be cremated
according to his will, which he wrote for nobody;
i never heard who got the jar. i wonder about that.
months later, i sat outside and burned in the sun;
then, picking off my baked skin, i thought:
we peel like onions, then decay into dust. in a few years
we'll be but shimmers in our grandchildren's sunlight.
that is, if anyone's there at death
except the office secretary. well,
that's a sad story; i should have never told it, except
there was no one else to tell. neither life nor grave:
he's just dust, to dust returned. so between, i put--a story,
poorly told.




april '09