Not Suffering

A woman I don't know grabbed my arm

and said he isn't suffering anymore

and I said thank you like I meant it warm

and walked to my car and shut the door.

The program's on the passenger seat,

the ink from his photo bleeding out

into the white border. Wet. The heat

won't come on fast enough. The doubt

I've carried since I was seventeen—

the kind that stays polite, stays dressed—

just broke its skin. I'm not serene.

I'm not at peace. I'm not impressed

by the architecture of the thing:

the flowers chosen, the lilies white,

the way the organ kept repeating

a song he never would have liked.

If you exist, you had a choice.

If you don't, then what is this—

this asking, this no-answer voice,

this me, still here, still furious.