On one side of the street,
the finale of the New Year’s fireworks
display booms, flowers and smokes.
On the other side of the street,
the porch of the funeral parlor is
jammed with black coats, pants and dress shoes
some sneak beer swigs from paper bags or
smoke obvious cigarettes.
If I were a real poet…
I would pen you a long, melodic, terribly boring ode
about the ironic juxtaposition of celebration and grief
or
about how the extremes of Life can be separted by a simple
double yellow line in the road
or
speculating over a stranger’s loved one who will
not see fireworks nor anything else, for that matter this new year.
Sadly, and not so sadly, I am not a real poet,
so I’ll just say I was just glad to be walking down the street,
holding hands with my wife, watching the fireworks, thinking
how happy I was not to be in a box in a stuffy funeral home
and wondering if it would be in bad taste to ask one of
coats, pants or shoes on the darkened porch if they had an extra beer.
THE MIND ATTIC 