“He looks so natural but did you see that smile?”
I heard it again and again as I walked through the chapel
“Did you see that smile? I never saw him with that smile.”
He looked anything but natural, after all he was dead but they were
right about his smile, to me it was the only natural thing about him
as he lay in the coffin.
It was the smile I had seen often;
leaning on the rail at the pier his line in the water,
quiet, looking out to sea…. and there was that smile,
sitting on the porch on a hot summer evening sipping
iced tea…..and there was that smile.
Later, after I was grown, watching him sit at the bar, staring at
his beer…. and there was that smile.
I had often wondered at that smile.
Where did it come from?
What did it mean?
Who was responsible?
Was it something he brought home from the war?
It was the subject of great fiction in my mind.
Looking at him now, cold to this world,
smiling that mischievous smile.
I knew I would really rather not know.
I straighten his tie and
copied his smile
as I said my final good bye.