Dedicated to Michael J. Sakara

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Your Death

Was an ignominious act,
performed by a madman.
Allowed through an error in judgment
by the gods who look after souls like yours.
They failed to see the future on that night.

I stared at the computer screen
that brought me the news,
years old, and quite
incomprehensible at first.

A friend came by to see me
bringing me a nicely wrapped gift.

It’s Christmastime now and
I can’t tell anyone you’re dead
because if I do I will begin to sob
with sounds that come out as
short barks, like laughter, and
if they love me, their day will be ruined,
since the entire tale is so off-the-wall
horrendous, and so filled with
unspeakable images for the prudish,
it’s too tawdry for their tender sensibilities,
and so agonizing to the wild hares who move
among the allegedly normal,
disguised as shop clerks, and waiters,
and plain looking people who live
alone in small apartments, and read
esoteric literature, and date librarians…
the ones with empathy, who will immediately
understand the entire thing, and shudder,
and momentarily go faint with the horror of it all.

You are so out of place Michael.
Can you hear me?
You are so out of place.

You belong somewhere else. You’re supposed to grow old.
You’re supposed to love life until the last possible ancient breath you draw comes out in a sound like a rattling windowpane.

The friend who dropped by wanted me to look at the present, but I had only known where you are now for less than an hour, and I was shaking too much, and I cried like a lost dog that was broken in half, while I pressed my face into her soft winter jacket, and suffocated in her well-meaning platitudes.

For Michael J. Sakara

A. Murray
December 14, 2006