“A pyre well lit, does not smoke.” You remarked.
And sorrow well hidden does not show
Save in the slip of your dessert spoon
Or the angle of your eyes.
We listen as you tell us
Of this pundit who arranged the corpse’s sheet
With his toe.
How your grief moved from friend
To two stray dogs,
Pallbearers at Yama’s door.
And when you return home tonight,
You will do strange things in your affliction
That we at this table have done before-
Drink brandy,
Forget the chair you sit in as you hold your knees,
Claw the air for a body.
And when morning comes to you, you will know
What we did not tell you at dinner-
The death of one is not the end of love.

Selected from ‘Fifty and Done’ Harper Collins 1999