For Jon, in loving memory
I performed my private obsequies
last night with Scotch and white wine
Then bawled my eyes out in the garden
as the weather finally broke
And when I’d visited at lunchtime
We gave him days instead of hours
But he rushed ahead and died just
after teatime.
Everyone has always measured out
their lives in eating
And since his diagnosis we planned
dining, once a month,
While time allowed, though Death’s Pandemic spree
put paid to that.
Jon was just a sideshow to the Grand Covid Parade,
a small pernicious instant
Of what, we agreed yesterday,
is always, always coming.
Always will.
It’s still cracked the World to pieces,
the shards whining back to ricochet
Through decades,
then forever.