Black Death And Puppy Love

Team Captain . smile forced . blue eyes closed . makeup caked . unnatural . Brown hair wavy . stapled down . undertaker . smelling of formaldehyde . Buried with a ball in hand . letter jacket . mother crying . macho daddy on his knees . pompom girls wail endlessly . “I love you” and “I miss you lots” . Letters on his grave . flowers weeping in despair . an open gash within the ground . a wound of dirt and grass . Little brother getting bored . too young to understand . a Labrador Retriever . whimpers . sighs . wets the ground . barely six months old . tiny drops of misty grey . cold and chilly sky . Pastor preaching . Jesus Christ . forgiveness . sin . amen . casket lowered . brown and brass . Taps is playing . shrill and soft . a shovel-full of dirt . Thump . Thump thump . banging on the door . No answer . No one home . In the casket . In the ground . a shell . no person . mind as dark as the space around him . Underneath the stapled hair . behind the pasty pancake . an open gash within his skull . a wound of blood and bone . Six feet tall and six feet under . Unhappy and alone . a howl from above . a Labrador in mourning . Father tries to shut him up but the dog continues wailing . A boy in black is far away . nose ring . red hair . outcast . watching from a distance . moments shared . kisses felt . a tear invades his eye . Black death and puppy love . he howls to the sky .