It made me cry today
reading your obituary
written so long ago.
After we rejoin the dust,
these paragraphs but meager
representations of our entirety
and I'm so sorry for the omission
of her name in your finality lyric,
for I have little doubt
of her significance.
Yet the most quenching
is ingested and secret
to only the drunkard
and I am so thankful for the vat
of "Dear Susie . . ." so that I
may partake as well.
I can only hope violets rested
in the white satin with you
and that an unknown slipped
a few verses beneath your clasped fingers
as companions during the reunion rising.
But it still made me cry today,
the omission, the black veil,
"Emily" written in a pencil
so easily erased, so easily assumed
that our eyes too
would be afflicted—
that our realm too
would be forfeited.
