not saying

if you wanted
to you
could, but i
would
never ask.
who wants to think about it?

once i was thirteen,
not much to say before that
not much after.
from there to here,
from beginnning to there.
some survived some longer than some others.
sometimes a truth is known
only to those who can't
own it.
that's pathology.

living, dying, dead,
they overlap and swallow each other.
sometimes what they knew if they thought
they never did know.
who wants to think about it?

there were
some remembered some
more than some others
but i wasn't ready to dance.
still.
I won't dance tomorrow either.

only two there were in a funeral week.
less before the week, more the week after,
as if.
probably i thought of me
only a child,
not reason for anything.

in the cemetery
separate, parked in the far back,
unbaptized dead, in sin a contagion
plain stones lean drunk like sailors
on leave stumbling cross
a grassy plain

can't but wonder what's
underneath, nothing, after all is
rotted, gone
porcelain skin, coagulated pools,
rust stained eyes
like an old porcelian sink, chipped black iron holding fast
against drunks who vomit, girls washing blood from their face.

i think they did
think, that is, but no one ever did
ask
once the proper face is put on things
there are no more quesitons.
yes, i think that's it.
no one ever said they weren't smart.
who wants to think about it?