Elegy

designstack.com

For J.

How quickly
death interrupts
the narrative,
the story arc,
the trajectory
taken for granted.

Abrupt full stop.

A friend
you loved for
forty years
suddenly
past tense.

His time.
his actions,
now memories.

The person
who stuck around
and fought
for you,
unstuck now.

The reassuring
smile. The
hand upon
your shoulder.

Fine words.

Quick eyes
slid beneath
earth’s lid.

Beginnings,
middles,
both easy.

The end,
harder
to tell.

So few love you
in a lifetime.

Each death
diminishes
the present.

The movie over.

A final dissolve.

The credits
shorter
with each
curtain’s fall,

soon none
will scroll there
at all.