she asked if I was with him,
you mean when he died?
hell no I said
he was with who he wanted to be

and that’s alright
caint really understand
unless you been through…
but I guess these days
most have

*****

put Clarence Gatemouth Brown
on the Bose speaker
born in Louisiana
grew up on the Texas side
of the Cajun slide

VFW hostess, the ugliest woman
in the most beautiful way
I mean from the inside out
I wanted to take her out of there
right then…some place nice,

asked if we wanted to push
the tables back and dance,
god-damn with the ashes
right there on the counter
but we did

*****

bearing his crosses
stopped going to Saint Rose
of Lima Bean, stopped living
with his wife is what the priest
said but I was the one bearing 

bearing more than any man,
seven long years I’m stuck up
on that hill in all that mess
of missing and what all
that means

*****

five genius grandchildren
from another state
not knowing how weird 
weird can be with mourners 
mostly drunks from

the backroom bar and buffet
of cooked cabbage,
the hostess pressed her flat
chest against my back,
the priest never showed