Gaunt arms and grey gloves
direct the hearse, direct us all
to park in spaces under names
upon tablets on a wall.
Soft music plays.
We file numbly into pews.
No one kneels. One man’s
legs refuse to stand,
a friend says: How much more
he might have done before the end.
It’s all been said before.
The town moves on. Undertakers
go about their business;
labels are cut from cellophane;
flowers shrivel in the rain.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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