Month: October 2024

In the end, the only thing left of you
Were your ashes, neatly wrapped up in urn;
The pictures, sepia-toned, scattered on tables
As your ex-colleagues and friends took turns 
To give bad speeches and recount feeble
Recollections, probably not all of them true. 

I never really knew you, and could only recall
One conversation that we ever had; something
About the economy or global affairs. Mostly
I think of your final years of hard suffering;
The years that cancer took from you; all
That time when Time was ebbing away, swiftly. 

I hope you've found your peace, at last,
Our hearts now fly your flag, half-mast. 

Your whole life, you promised that you would
Be different. You would not be like your own mother,
And you would love all of your own children, each
Of them equally loved. In the end, you smothered
Each of your children with the same poison: rude
Doses of insult and disgust, beneath coded speech.