Second Favourite Place

His saving grace (which didn’t save him in the end)

was that he would never complain;

never mumbled at the wastage in his

limbs at the beginning of the thing,

nor when the gnawing pain took root

in his marrow core, forever.

They cast his ashes in his second favourite

place.

A shanty plywood cross marked with

Sharpie tells it so.

And I don’t know whether it would have been

too much bother to take his remains

to where he loved the best,

or whether it was never in the nature

of whatever relatives there were

to second guess his mustn’t grumble

way of life and death.

This is where I found and truthed him,

liberated him to dance upon the wind,

righteously complaining at long last.