Penguins

content/post/poetry/2021-01-06-penguins.md

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+---
+type: post
+date: 2021-01-06
+title: Penguins
+categories:
+- Poem
+tags:
+- Death
+- Grief
+---
+
+Too many suits move in too many lines.  
+They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed,  
+hunting crudites, canapés, bruscheta.  
+Fingers ferry food --- fish, perhaps --- finding  
+slack-jawed mouths already open,  
+squawking at wayward children  
+or bemoaning The Market,  
+whatever that may be.  
+At some point, who cares how long ago,  
+death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again.  
+Who knows how well they knew him,  
+their backs turned, studiously  
+deciding that he is no longer of them?  
+one could never guess.  
+We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps,  
+that the room is tastefully furnished,  
+the coffin silver, the bar, open,  
+quite good, and none of them are drunk yet,  
+or at least none look it.  
+"Good man, good man," they mutter,  
+doing all they can to convince each other  
+through well-rehearsed performances,  
+that this must be the case.  
+The silently bereaved already sit graveside.