Parties

On Sunday I wrote the obituary. I paused 
before accepting the job, which my brother  
gave me because I’m a poet. But it turned out 
to be the right thing to do: incident, incident, 
life. Windfall, child, marriage. Or none of those.  
Instead of focusing on the ghost  
in the room, I arranged the data of existence  
but left off the intimacies: the figs  
and ease, reversals, bothers. Which is to say,  
a certainty without the lightning  
behavior, his fat thumbs, a nice roundness 
to his bald head. How much we would miss.  
I couldn’t put in reasons or arguments, so I put in  
more periods. I slid sentences around  
until his life flowed. Decisive, incredibly sound.  
I put in what others remembered: dates,  
degrees, versions of what you tell people  
at parties. I built him a legend:  
column-length, tight. Sort of true.