Advance Requiem for a Lovely Couple

So Beauty's gone under the knife again,
For a chin lift and an alabaster brow;
And Truth, who can't stop confessing
Everything to everyone, has taken another
Name in the witness protection program.

Who would recognize them now, Anonymous
And his soulmate? Maybe, with her new look,
She'd like a new name, too, something tan enough
For a swimsuit, like Melanie, or as pale as
Blanche, all parasols and moonlit lace.

Cramped in their dim suburban home, afraid
To stroll around the neighborhood, Alias goes only
Deeper into himself, where his thoughts line up
Like retired folk at a buffet diner, as if it's
All You Need to Know Night in the brain.

It's a cold and lonely life, quiet to the end,
When the organ pipes will play low hymns
No one but churchmice and poets can hear,
As soft as two palmfuls of ash poured inside
A small urn, old and Greek and overwrought.

Copyright © 2009 Elton Glaser All rights reserved
from Alehouse
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission