Untimely #15 - Camel Coat

We shaded her chin with charcoal.

We put her in a wig,

A wig of coiled black curls.

She wore the camel coat we gave her,

The coat to hide her budding breasts.
Her name was Susan.

Susan pushed her old grandfather,

A sack of rotting fruit,

In a rusting wheelchair.

Her eyes danced through the masses

That his dying eyes did miss.

She found the line. They joined the line.

The dotted line.

And Lenny’s body lay in a smoked glass case,

In a dimly lit space, behind a long black curtain.

And the line, the dotted line,

Weaved in and out, and in between,

Convention stalls and weeping people.

Seven from the front, Susan’s camel coat,

The cuff snagged on the handle mouldings,

The plastic handle mouldings,

Of her grandfather’s wheelchair.

And he sat there. Dying there. Unaware. As Susan’s hair.

And the snag became a fray.

And the fray became a tear,

A tear that trickled down,

Susan’s streaking charcoal cheek,

As she did weep at her grandfather’s dying eyes.

And the line, the dotted line,

Led to that dimly lit space

Where Lenny’s body lay in a smoked glass case,

Behind a long black curtain.

Where weeping people wait

To weep and compensate.

But it’s too late.

It’s much too late.