Eulogy

What a maddening, unknowable pair you are.
You bought me shoes that never fit,
that I began to outgrow the moment they touched my feet.
When I asked you for a roadmap, you handed me a globe.

I never knew you.

I met your cousins last night, Anguish and Exaltation.
Not quite as put together as you, perhaps, but who can be?
You’re The All-American Couple, with stars and stripes
adorning your carefully starched lapels.
They said you kicked them out of the house for being too rowdy.
They make off-color jokes and smell like Ten High, so what?
At least they know how to have a good time.
I woke up with three broken knuckles
and a four-Advil headache, which may not be
the greatest souvenir, but it’s more than you’ve ever given me.

Last month I went out to the country
to stay with your Aunt Euphoria and Uncle Melancholy.
Phoria still loves to talk, but Mel
just sat on the porch all weekend,
muttering to himself and counting the rings
on the fallen trees in the backyard.
Auntie asks how you are doing, and I say
“Perfectly well,” because that’s exactly what you always tell me.
So it’s not exactly a lie, though I don’t believe it myself.
Auntie sends me home with a batch of homemade brownies.
Uncle leaves me with some choice words of wisdom,
and a smile that means more for the effort involved.

I’ve heard you used to be King and Queen
in a time when there were only three primary colors in the world.
Your ultimatums and decrees were the law back then,
but these days I leave your house hungry and fluent in platitudes
after all my visits, which are increasingly less frequent.

Happiness and Sadness;
When I finally hear the news
(which I’m expecting any day now)
I won’t shed a tear and I won’t crack a smile.
I’ve made all the effort I could, but
there is nothing left to celebrate,
nothing there to mourn.