“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne…” – James Russel Lowell

We are all mourners now, our clothes
funeral shrouds we tear off our backs
when the time comes (and it will come);
in one pocket we carry brushes for tidying
the graves we stumble on in schools, churches,
nightclubs, concerts, grocery stores, streetcorners,
and in the other plastic flowers to brighten them up;
our bodies are grown stiff with kneeling in prayer;
we watch life bleed away all around us, screaming
Out, damned spot! at no one in particular; we dream
of Heaven and fear that Hell is murky, though in truth
we believe in neither; we work so hard to build
an estate which, at last, our children refuse.

In a world where attention wanders without end
we still pause, rapt, for a tearful moment, when
the last rites are read, the dirges played;
and lacking willpower, or time, or imagination
to stop the killing, we become expert at lining up
—so orderly, so civilized! —to pay our respects
to the dead.