Eligíe

Eligíe
In remembrance of
a person quite alive –
a person quite uncommon still
a person who still smells the same.
In Remembrance,
congregation,
we are gathered here today
to mourn the passing of
just everything
he ever meant to me.

A quiet boy,
a harmless boy –
a boy who loved another boy
and kept a secret from a girl
who would have died for him –

And yet, I could have killed you
any time
these last few months.
I could have, by the power of my mind
Stabbed you in your sleep
Strychnine in your lager
Garrotted you in any dark alleyway
or in that bedroom that I never saw
And has he seen it yet?

But, please, an Elegy,
(Fr. Elegíe)
I swear you mean no more to me
than advancement on experience
and a scar on a heart that will heal
(although, when thunderclouds approach
roll into my valley from yours to the west,
I will feel the fracture tingle –
predicting any heavy rain).

I stopped myself –
and so I’ve killed you,
(though in this language lesson
where we count down minutes on
the broken classroom clock
you breathe right next to me)

You’re not -
You’re embalmed.
Congregation!
I have walked away.

I’m free.