Nobody Wants to Write an Elegy
You would do anything to avoid that
You just want one more day with dad
Watching Turner Classics together
Talking about the old days
Talking about Canada
Talking about the Union Pacific Railroad
Talking about being broke and on the
Road with the band
Talking about mother
Gone almost ten years
He still misses her
“I would be so glad if she
Just walked through that door, son”
The next movie
Brings him back to his early
Teens when he was an usher
In one of those grand movie palaces
In Calgary
He begins to get away from me
Walking toward the screen
In his majestic
Almost military uniform
He disappears from the
Room
He is gone
Nobody wants to write an elegy
You would do anything to avoid that
Everybody wants just one more day
Notes:
This poem was previously published in Catamaran Literary Reader (2013) and is reprinted here by permission of William J. Harris. It is part of the portfolio “I Hope You Like Being Here with Me: The Work of William J. Harris,” curated by Howard Rambsy II.
Source: Poetry (February 2023)