Respects

It was the worst
kind of day
for a burial.

The poet, lashed red
by rain and booze,
said it was hard
to speak of such
a man. Instead
he’d leave us
with our thoughts,
and left.

We stood around
in rain,
with throats
as dry as death,
and thought it was
the kind of day
to lash
all poets red
and bury
poetry.