No need for a fence.

All day long they came and went;
from the safety of my elevated window
I watched the procession of big dark sedans
park in front of the neighbor's house spewing
sharply dressed septuagenarians with shoes freshly polished
clothing coal black, hair tombstone gray.
The way that they carried themselves proved they were cops
or had been at one time. The way that men congregated
in the driveway told me that something had gone wrong.
People don't stop to chat outside in the cold
unless there's a reason, something to know before going in:
how it happened, how the family's holding up, what not to say.

Even a patrol car or two stopped by, potential speeding tickets
be damned.

All those cops in one place clarified what had happened.
They were paying their respects.
When a police officer goes it's a big deal.
A Fraternal Order indeed.

Richard was a retired cop.
Rumor has it he chased around my buddy's dad years back.
The stroke he'd had ten years ago forced him to leave the force.
The cigarettes he continued to smoke against doctor's orders
took him out of the game in one sense, kept him in it in another;
at least he was still doing it his way.
That's more than most can say.
And he didn't give a damn that his moustache was jet black
while his hair a mottled gray. He walked around his property
thinking and smoking and kicking up leaves
without a worry as to what it all could've meant.
He'd put his time in. He'd served.
What else did they want from him?

This may be the first thing written in your honor
aside from a modest obituary in a paper people only read
for lack of a better one. I apologize for its shortcomings
as would I like to say I'm sorry for that party early on
where your wife came knocking on our door, or my failure
to shut the blinds a few times, and I'm pretty sure
there were several instances where I could've waved
as you drove by in your boxy twenty-five-year-old car
but didn't.

Light one up for me, Rich.
I'll keep my eye on the place for ya'.




Currently reading:
"Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis.