EPITAPH

We have to go on
though we want to be blameless
for your lost brother
hiding from war's opprobrium
at a recurring nightmare
under the white cover
denuded yet open faced
except for his laughter
about his week -old underwear
and coming home blameless
after your last message came
to us with no guilt or retreat
you were not shamed
for not putting on your boots
blaming it on his flat feet
or being deaf in one ear
a status grown into irony
by his "4 F " rejection
convicted by a mastery of fear
that he was a bare necessity
of their related son's reflection
he was under a reputation's curse
of his belated family
in a conflict having
when  life ate us all
he is gone from the station
having not left on the right path
pushed down here on the beach
by wildly Cape angular winds
near the familiar bird feeder
refreshed at the fountain chorus
to swear it still feels like winter
as an escaped tenor of a bear
is heard by the woods
on March first's murderous air
off an ocean's raucous waves
he's wandering in the gazebo
and sat to reminisce for a time
with Joey a light weight boxer
recovering from amateur night
offering him a small cup of whiskey
that he saved with his food
up against his youth hostel's
sandy chorus of rude dreams
that fills an absence of distance
from any death wish fatality
still carded for memory loss
to be reached in contemplation
or solitaire,
now mounting over
the winding beach stair
finding a single yellow crocus
probably from a high school prom
that eventually will hurt him
in his pea jacket pocket
leaving us with no homily, ribbons
epitaph or his teddy bear
a fellow not frozen into believing
any glimpsed churlish reality
he is none for the worse.