watching them lower his box

watching them lower his box

Watching them lower his box into the earth
I remember all too well his passions:
the wine, the women, the song;
and silently I whisper,
“Don’t worry my friend. I’ll be joining you
before not too long.”

There was Sophie, a sophomore
when he met her;
they stayed together,
on-and-off, for over twenty years.
Never married. Often fought.
When she finally walked out,
he couldn’t forget her
even though she had ruined his life.

His favourite wine was Chablis, always cold.
The song was Beethoven’s--the Eroica.
Always too short for him,
it was ever too long for me.

Ah, but I loved him.

He had three jackets, I remember:
his blue leather ‘James Dean’ one;
an expensive tweed;
and one his father had given him,
a black one, that he only wore to funerals.
That was the one he hated.
No trousers ever matched that jacket.
He was never suited for death.

A thin rain pours thinly from a grey mournful sky.
I look again at the ground.
His box is gone now. Fat earth covers it.
The soil is damp and only waits for worms.