Telling Time

Let me blunder through another day
mourning the tinny honey of my words.

"I'm fine. I really am fine."

God, or something of that spirit, sits with me and pats my hand
when I say what I have learned.

Fine sadness, is delicate porcelain between my fingers,
steaming with hot tea and not enough to say.

"He would have been 21 today."

The warbler has taken the attention of the funeral director
as he tells me the story of his son.
I am patient in the loutish silence we share.
It is not a lofty place where we shine without fault.

We wallow in the opulent ashes
and the smell of the last breath,
all witnesses of something we'd forgotten.


This is part of the deal we make
to be in human time.