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I held the strap taut, bowing down at the dirt,
six feet or more, the rectangular hole,
no sweetness or welcome, just earth on the lid
where resided the bones of the previous soul.

Lowered with care, my brother and I
and two other bearers toiling behind,
the cheap gleaming wood decked with cheap plastic brass,
to a standstill of rest, to an end of a kind.

“The Lord is my Shepard,” we murdered off key
as the wind blew accompaniment over the hill;
ravens took flight to the overcast sky,
rain fell sporadically, spattered with chill.

I remembered her photos of when she was young,
spread on the frayed pinafore there in her lap,
a patchwork of sepia, white and grey dreams
she no longer remembered, her mind set to snap.

The scant recognition then blurred in her eyes,
drained simian brown, no more clear and blue;
her head wisps of silver, mere gossamer strands,
adrift and unkempt, no light shining through.

Her sad loss of reason, the slump of her spine,
the cloud-bank rolled in with no instant of pause,
the stealing of dignity, ravage of time,
the theft of her life, of the woman she was.

I cried her no tears, assigned her no grief,
brushed the rose in my pocket, the flower I hid;
when no one was looking, I bade her farewell,
dropped the rose and a kiss down onto the lid.

When asked about tributes, the family replied,
“She didn’t want flowers, so we’ve done as bid,”
I sat there in silence, bit down on my tongue,
for I knew, from one person, she did.

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