For Stanley Solomon (1947-2021)
Colour is life.
You need only the confirmation
of startling red seeping
from a finger
caressed by the serrated edge
of a brand new blade left in the sink
sticking up between the dishes - a knife
that moments before was in your hand
carving the pulpy flesh of a tomato
into thin wedges
for your lover’s kale salad:
The gash shocks and excites,
as if time itself was sliced open
from the loose sack of routine,
the heart-pump speeds, pulse flutters
and the frantic search is on
for a tourniquet to stem the oozing colour.
And not 24 hours before the same hand
held a pale cardboard box,
‘A bit heavy’ the man said, smiling,
presenting it like a gift to be wrapped.
The familiar name was laser printed in black ink
above a cremation ID (his last official number)
evoking the Holocaust
(it's no wonder we Jews typically don’t do this).
Summoning remnants of courage
I inspected the contents;
not all of him was incinerated,
granular bits of dry bone were visible
through the clear cellophane,
reminding me of shards of broken pottery
from a lost civilization
sifted by wind to the surface
of a sun-bleached biblical desert.
And now his kin
are turned archaeologists
deciphering who he really was
and asking why he didn’t care enough,
or like children trying to colour
between the lines,
making up a story.
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