No Resurrection from Cremains

No Resurrection from Cremains

What provision did you hold
for 900-crematorium-degrees...
or paper bundles of blood and biopsy results...
or friendship frail as thin cotton...
or radiation treatment anesthetics?
And then the drive through ice fog
without your friend... no more all-nighters
of poetry, imaginary secret star maps,
two-day-old steak sandwiches
sliced to shreds to share-out
in a stainless steel bowl.

Stainless steel hospital gurney,
Ezekial 37:3, in-fucking-deed,
when tumored bones crumble
and fold into one another.
Empty paw prints in last week's snow,
And no more rants
at pantywaist cocksucker
literati magazine editors...
no...  and there ain't no howling
at this Wolfhound moon...
no, not after the ol' two-syringe kill-trick...
Propofol and Euthanol.
So much for the beauty of rhyme.

You walk your friend's plastic-sacked
five-pounds of furnace-whitened
bone chips around the living room,
set them on his overstuffed leather chair,
on his dog bed, atop the TV cabinet,
walk Wolfie, off the leash, after Bulleit,
down his favorite night trail...
avoid the ready grave.
Professional weepers not needed...
this damned amateur is doing okay.

Red and Wolfie Shuttleworth

2008-2009