![]() Memorial Service
Forgiving the living is hard enough, shrugging away all the wounds delivered with kisses and curses, the thousand and one petty slights that bled me to an albino shade, that shadow me even in dreams. But the dead are altogether another matter, not easily to be enlightened and quite beyond regretting anything (as far as we can tell) and most likely indifferent to our common currency of tears. And so it is that pissing on your grave doesn't please me as much as it ought to. Now that you have passed beyond all blaming and shaming, what can I do but rise and proclaim sincere admiration when my turn comes around to speak? From Volume 180, Number 4, July 2002 Copyright © The Poetry Foundation |