Someone
someone is dressing up for death today, a change of skirt or tie eating a final feast of buttered sliced pan, tea scarcely having noticed the erection that was his last shaving his face to marble for the icy laying out spraying with deodorant her coarse armpit grass someone today is leaving home on business saluting, terminally, the neighbours who will join in the cortege someone is paring his nails for the last time, a precious moment someone’s waist will not be marked with elastic in the future someone is putting out milkbottles for a day that will not come someone’s fresh breath is about to be taken clean away someone is writing a cheque that will be rejected as ‘drawer deceased’ someone is circling posthumous dates on a calendar someone is listening to an irrelevant weather forecast someone is making rash promises to friends someone’s coffin is being sanded, laminated, shined who feels this morning quite as well as ever someone if asked would find nothing remarkable in today’s date perfume and goodbyes her final will and testament someone today is seeing the world for the last time as innocently as he had seen it first
Copyright © 2005 by Dennis O'Driscoll. From The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, I. Used with permission of Wake Forest University Press.