top of page
Calendar’s Last Page
2.
An omniscient narrator
could zip between the fanned-out friends,
note their entertainments from the fly’s eye view,
contrast those diversions to
the last square Calendar marked off.
An omniscient narrator could’ve been a bigger help,
summoned paramedics, stuck close,
changed the poor man’s TV channel,
sang a good Kaddish.
So though it changes nothing to know
who was chewing steak at the time,
who weighed a kiss to give or withhold
at the Gone With the Wind revival,
the living can’t help but hand-wring, aim blame,
they murmur their half-formed mea culpas,
mortuary if-onlies with an impotent awe.
Calendar is off recycling;
no one knew his mercury had spiked.
bottom of page