Good Company

 

The dead are good company.

They have the best stories.

They never have moods

Or awkward silences;

They are always a shining

Summation of themselves,

Instead of the cracked, unsteady,

Blowing-in-the-wind creatures

The living are. They take things easily.

 

They can’t hold your hand, of course,

Or drive you to the airport,

But they laugh readily,

More readily than we do,

Because they do not grieve;

They are past all grief.

They are always smiling -

We remember them smiling - 

And they are never impatient;

They have nothing but time.

 

But at night,

In the lonely hours,

They have a way

Of vanishing again,

Leaving us alone

In the ocean of a bed,

Wracked with new grief,

As if on the very first day.

 

The only thing better 

Than remembering you, my darling,

Would be to have you back.

Would be to have you back.