funerals

i'll just admit that
i didn't feel anything at your funeral
or the one before that
or the one before that.
in fact the only one i ever felt anything,
i didn't even know the corpse
until i met him in a casket
and he was dead.
and i was young,
i was full of mysticism,
full of thoughts like
"you ought not be so dead!"
and i wept,
but only with disappointment
in my chariot-gods
who did not attend his funeral
or the one before that
or the one before that.
now i don't feel anything:
i suspect no-one does,
only everyone is better at pretending, except
i can't see how that would be,
because i'm very good at pretending.
i pretend many things like
you're alive
i'm dead
and it's me watching all these people simper past
crying--maybe for real!--i can't tell,
i was never good at telling
even when i was alive.
or i pretend you are a tree
and we are all the things that live in trees
(there are quite a many!)
who will not know that you are dead
until long, long, long after
when rot overcomes your noble core
and we find somewhere else to live
(the whole great very many of us!)
and even then i confess we might not realize, ever,
that you died.
that's how i am at funerals: yours
and the one before that
and the one before that.



jan '10