“Once upon a time ...”
Isn’t that the customary beginning,
The bedside-sitting, fairy-telling manner,
Isn’t it appropriate?
And for an ending, “Living
   Happily ever after.”
Or perhaps 
Just living:
Will it not suffice?

The buried her facing the sun
As it rose in the morning, in a coffin
Smaller than her name,
And almost as new:
Josephine Michelle,
Born - March Second,
Died - March Seventeenth.
Cause of Death - Alcohol ingestion,
         or perhaps
	       - Personal choice.

Tell me, you drunken bastard
Where can I buy another life,
Another soul for my Josephine?
Will it not suffice?
Isn’t it appropriate?
Do they stock them at the local hotel,
In between your beer and your whisky?
When they pull her helpless
Broken bloody image from the wreckage,
Can we start again, with another
“For the road?”

They buried her in the morning facing the sun.
Josephine Michelle:
Cause of Death - Automobile accident,
And the ending wasn’t 
“Living happily ever after.”
Or even
Just living.

                                February, 1977