there’s a film
over everything
we’ve had our fill--
fed and fattened up
on but still lift
heavenward
as we file into
that afterlife
& whether
fussed over
or laughed at
be treated
as artfully
and outdated
as the dead allow
suffered yet
again
Seventeen years I’ve been a bookseller. Once I was laureate of Portsmouth and twice a finalist for New Hampshire.