Valediction Copyright © 2009 Rob Lock

You decide on a sober tie, despite requests
something colourful as we celebrate the life
and get there only just in time – the buses;
find a pew that’s not too close to family,
not too doggedly at the back, and look around.
You wonder who that is with, yes, Gerald:
you hadn’t heard they’d split up, let alone,
then realize, his daughter, Glenys, or maybe
the other one.
                    You don’t mind this too much,
flailing for the names of the living,
but yesterday, struggling so long for Val’s name,
that hurt: two months after the crematorium,
compounding the knowing-more-about-her-now
than in her life - this friend who would have smiled
her engaging buck-toothed smile at your hesitation.
Surely, you think, the dead deserve better than this.