Mood: Disturbed
Drinking: Delinquent
dead men tell no tales
and
the living won’t shut up.
we eulogize with lies.
we fantasize about a happier ending.
about what could have been
if life were lived on film
managed by disney
scripted by ephron
and sponsored by coca-cola.
even as the ashes fly
we cannot speak the truth so
we fall back on fabrications.
history is so easily revised
when we no longer stare death
in the fading blue eyes.
we memorialize a different man
who might have been
but never was.
under the supervision
of this sacred steeple,
we fill in the blanks
we mad lib bullshit.
St. Peter’s unnamed children
Angel wing autopsy saw
Myocardial infarction of the Pearly Gates
the rules of revision require
politeness and pretty words.
defects are pastorally photoshopped.
all evidence of human-ness
is swept into the skeleton closet
to join the cigarettes and heart attacks.
don’t speak ill of the dead
within earshot of the second wife
she’ll send you on your way
with “journeying mercies” and
a backstabbing knife.
(God love ‘em)
we inter all his sins with
what’s left of his bones.
bronze all the stars, leave no grave
undisturbed in our
quest to manufacture
peaceful rest.
all saints are dead.
all dead are saints.
and
the living tell no tales
of imperfect truth.
-Lo, who doesn’t want a whitewashed eulogy.
LaDonnaWitmer 