As If You Were Never There

The flowers are already wilted.

No one wants to kiss the corpse.

Sadness that he’s gone, shared

memories of good times that fade

as soon as we get into the car,

drive home, get to mowing the lawn.

Once a year, we take out a box 

of old photos and look at them,

laugh, sigh, and put them away again.

Maybe some good he did will live on;

maybe some ripples on the pond

that diminish as time goes on

’til the water is still again.

What information do the caveman’s 

bones relay? Did he laugh, did he cry,

did he matter except to scientists

with nothing better to do than figure out

what he ate? Even the stories they make

fall short of salvation.

We’re here, and then, we’re gone;

only known as long as memory lives on.