Standing In For Someone

I didn't know the man who died.

I knew his daughter from the floor —

the way she nodded in the hallway.

That's what I was standing there for.

Twenty minutes in the line,

a paper plate, three crackers,

a cube of cheese gone slightly soft —

held with both hands like it mattered.

When I got to the front I said

I'm so sorry for your loss

the way you say a line you've learned

without ever paying the cost.

She nodded. I nodded. I moved

toward the window and stood there

while someone talked about the man —

a man I'd never had to care

about in any specific way.

I choked a little on a cracker.

Nobody saw. There were sandwiches,

the crusts cut off. I left after

it seemed like enough time had passed.

I don't know what enough means here.

The plate was still in both my hands

halfway to the car. The year

keeps putting me in rooms like this

where I'm the proxy for the real.