1996

When news of his would-be death arrived,
his body sterile in white cloth,
serene his was, his finest stupor – clinging on to a drip
  of life, his tongue a strawberry his mother recounted,

forcing him into, his senses dulled,
  it was 1996: else there was understanding,
  there was a hand in a hand that is a latticed rose
  of beauty – or unbeauty, the high prayer of it,

they sat in front of the room facing a mute wall
  for days weeping or laughing. The rustling of the
  daily paper broke silence not news – his dearth was sure.

no more almost was when he went sharply
in a field of grass, his shredded amusement
received by an unfolding – it was his years sideswiping
  him later on, his indices of age revealing an undulant postscript

to which there were imaginary sky-portfolios and
  a particular representation of a smoothened end of a smoking gun
  he held now, years after, years later on

a portion of it his mouth pressed on a lover’s,
and a footnote hidden
    deep within his pelvis:     come back here when laden