Kaddish

The opioid crisis occupies much of the news these days, as well it should. Roughly, 64,000 people died because of opiates in 2016 here in the U.S. The number of deaths is shocking, and yet we remain  blasé about the 88,000 lives lost due to alcohol in that same time frame.

As with almost everything, statistics only hit home once they turn personal. And, yes, the individual in the following poem was a friend of mine.



Kaddish


Headstones worn soft
sit close together, tilting
a bit toward each other
like old folks gathered
in rockers.

Discussions of weather,
bits of gossip about visitors,
judgment of children
who come and those who don't
pass between them.

A midday funeral hushes all
as the hearse rolls past.
Out of the lead limo emerge
a silver-haired man and his wife,
puffiness around his eyes,
faltered steps as she turns.

News goes grave to grave:
the casket cradles the body
of their son sober, now,
for five years, three months
and fourteen days until yesterday's
freefall.

Down the rows the old ones
sigh while the earth splits in two.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor