Grim Tunes

My father died, or so I am told.
I wasn't there to witness it for myself,
So, for all I know, he escaped the tyranny of this life
And moved to Florida and is now yucking it up
With all the widow ladies in some retirement village,
Splitting wood and borrowing things from their pantries.

Then again, as a counter balance,
I saw his death certificate,
Although my parents are perfectly capable
Of pulling strings and getting one, dead or alive.

And yet again, I have my mother's account of
How he never woke up after my sister and I
Sang Waltzing Matilda to him in his sick room.

That was the last time I saw him.
Two or three weeks after that,
Under hospice care,
Without food or water and enough
Morphine to fell a horse,
He let out one last long breath, his final bitch,
And expired,
Quite a long time after his expiration date.

After he died, my mother said, he just stayed put,
Getting uglier by the second and
Turning a very bad color
Until she could stand it no more and
Called 911 or the coroner or the funeral home,
I can't remember which, for The Removal.

She couldn't get over the mangled wreckage, and
I couldn't tell her to her face that he died like a dog
Or a cat or even a deer by the side of the road,
Whose remains, without the art of mortuary science,
Shock and repulse the living,
The antithesis of what we like to call life.

What I am left with is his DNA,
Solid and mean as a brick wall,
And a suitcase full of old ties.
I am reminded that this is how we all end up,
Completely totaled in the corporeal junkyard,
Grim faced, empty, the stuff of scary stories,
Wondering why we are not allowed any believable opium.

August 21, 2009