Sam grinned at me
from the obituary page —
windswept hair, golf shirt,
framed in summer leaves.
Born and died in Oklahoma City
like the smiling grocer, Ruby Ellen,
boxed next to him in the newspaper,
strands of pearls and corsage on red.
James Louis collected coins.
Poppy loved the lake house.
Brian fought in Vietnam, and
Coach left his players on the field.
According to the obituary,
Sam was the funniest,
most entertaining guy
we knew. He died
at a restaurant bar,
eating dinner alone.
All of them perished
with or without a thought
of rebirth. But memories of them
hone hearts, seed minds.
Like Aspens,
mankind is a single living organism –
a chain on nature’s swing
without the legs to push death away.
Terri Lynn Cummings’ poetry appears in Melancholy Hyperbole, Red River Review, Illya’s Honey, and elsewhere. She is a 2015 Woody Guthrie Poet and a finalist in the 2016 Songs of Eretz Poetry Contest. Village Books Press will publish her first poetry book in March of 2016. Terri lives in Oklahoma City with her husband and two dogs.
Categories: Poetry
Tags: e-zine, ezine, hyperbole, longing, melancholy, melancholy hyperbole, new, Obituary, poem, poet, poetry, poets, submit, Terri Lynn Cummings, writing
Melancholy Hyperbole 
LOVE this, Terri! The first lines captured my attention and I thought it was going to be a poem about seeing the obit of a former boyfriend or something like that, but this was so much more!