In Pacem

It's 85 and bone-dry this fall in the mountains

I'm avoiding your gravesite in Mount Olivet

The clover and weeds have encroached on my own name

And right now's not the time to take in all of it.

Fourteen years later I looked up your obit

"A positive person," "a beacon of light."

No mention of that time in the low-rent fast food place

Lady threatened to send me to CPS that night.

If April's the cruelest

Then October's meaner

You'd say "Indian summer,"

Whether P.C. or no.


I should go lay lilies

But I'm feeling keener

Avoid all that bummer

Let some fall rites go.