9/23
Sonnets From Other Lives: Harv

Those goddamn flowers were all sentenced to death
the minute someone clipped their stems.  The life
of each cut rose and baby's breath
wilts now beside the box holding my wife.
Myra chose the flowers--music too.
Ever dutiful--her mother's daughter.
I'm grateful she gives me nothing to do
but sit & be her helpless grieving father.
Some minister will stand up front & say
that all of this is part of God's great plan--
that Annie's resting in a better place.
Bullshit.  Her place is right beside me.  Here.
I won't give God a single goddamn tear.