Henry Collins, obiit Dec 1969

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