A eulogy to the somebody
I claim to have used to know
It is scribbled on paper
Napkin
Receipt
Whatever
Behind my wood rotten desk
Under frost kissed drink rings and
And like all the other letters before it
Creased and folded into shoe boxes on top shelves
They all begin the same
And that part I have memorized
As I count the licks
Against the roof of my mouth
The slides of my tongue just beyond
The edge of my teeth
The drop of my head
I match with the dip of my voice
When I say, “A terrible loss”
But the words I have now bent
And smudged across one another
In the palm of my fist-formed hand
Have bled through their paper
And like no eulogy before I have
Nothing to say.
My head hung over what I know realize
Is just some body
That held somebody I used to know.