20200118.0430

We exhumed him
The professor I had once envisioned
Confirmed that he is dead
He was not stillborn
He drew a few breaths
Screamed
Defiance and
Outrage and
Shock and
Fear
But lapsed into a coma before he could walk
And I was long in the process of
Pulling from his cooling corpse the
Tubes and
Needles that
Kept his heart beating
Feebly
Blood sluggishly oozing through his veins
Going through the boxes that had been
Gathered for him
Showed some things we had thought lost
Cookbooks with recipes
Particularly fondly recalled
Old methods books for saxophones played
Ineptly then as now
Tchotchkes and bookmarks
Bringing smiles to faces among
The grimaces of old dust
And the occasional dead roach
We keep a few mementos of him
Things chosen to retain
Not kept anymore from the inertia of
Nearly twenty years of
Life often spent badly
And we are happier for it