Two rows of heads puffed white for show
are turned to watch the gurney go
parade-like down the hall and through
the double doors, and out of view.

They linger, as the swinging doors
are gazed to stillness, and intercourse
is but the mingling of silhouettes.
Beyond the tumults of regret

and wonder, they are elsewhere, all
their architecture of recall
connecting lives to family plots,
or maybe – further back – in what

may be a keepsake memory – light
parade, perhaps – a child’s delight
in clowns and cotton candy, high
and wispy as puffed hair. Friends die

often, but not in violence –
not here, where death comes to the sense
in not-quite-joy, and not-quite-grief,
but trembling, lightly, like a leaf

that might be blown, or not, or light
as dandelion fields puffed white
and wispy, wavering. In slow surmise
they gaze on quiet with quiet eyes,

filling the hall with noiselessness,
and dreaming but to acquiesce
to dream, and but to linger some
in thrall to stillness yet to come.

*****

Brian Gavin writes: “My poem sort of rips off (shamelessly!) the form and rhyme scheme of the famous A E Housman poem ‘To An Athlete Dying Young‘. It is, however, about a different kind of death – extreme old age – and the gentleness of it. It’s based on something I actually saw in a nursing home, when white heads once leaned out of their rooms to see a friend taken away on a gurney. The image of a parade struck me, and the heads of puffed white hair reminded me of cotton candy at the parades of my youth. Eventually the images of puffed hair and puffed candy morphed into a field of puffed white dandelions wavering in the wind.
I almost left the title at ‘Death Watch‘ – which I kind of preferred for the double meaning – but opted to add the rest of it for the sake of clarity. This piece ran in my collection Burial Grounds.”

Brian Gavin is a retired Distribution Manager who started writing poetry 10 years ago. His poems have appeared in The Journal of Formal Poetry, Peninsula Poets and Snakeskin Magazine, and in the Potcake Chapbook ‘Careers and Other Catastrophes’. He lives in Lakeport, Michigan, USA, with his wife Karen. ‘Burial Grounds’ is available from Kelsay Books.
You can see more of his work at briangavinpoetry.com

Photo: “Dandelions Gone to seed, Dandelion puff ball seeds weeds lawn infestation roundup herbicide Pics by Mike Mozart of TheToyChannel and JeepersMedia on YouTube #Dandelions #Weeds #DandelionSeeds #Lawn #DandelionFlowers #Dandelion” by JeepersMedia is licensed under CC BY 2.0.