Someone he did not know found his body, today,
lying in the floor of the bedroom where you learned
to pray, the right ear partially removed by vermin
You're in New Delhi, on your way to Calcutta, so
another will need to make the usual arrangements;
his adult daughter, probably; your niece
He had a son whose untimely passing took away
the will to live; his sister survives with such honor,
such dignity, yet lives too far away to handle details
There's no more apt place for him to elect to leave
than your old room in the family house where you
spent your uneasy adolescence
The furniture he long ago sold to buy alcohol, and
it would have been the one room he could get into
still and sleep, all others being blanketed by beer cans
You're aware, there's much to say about one who
served in life, and now in death, as your mentor in
the spirit, a longstanding, longsuffering intimacy
The rapport began for you at age three with fanatical
observation of his perfect habits, among which was
his noticing of your own ways
Yet you shared too much in life, and cleanly, now to be
grasping for words as though at the last gasp: as all else,
he came to pass, not to stay
What happens in the meantime leaves its own impression
and his was one so grand; however he lived suited his need,
that he knew so well
