“Greatly Loved, Deeply Missed”

says the same funeral director
I’ve met six times over the last dozen years
as he welcomes me at the door
his face a little more pale
his mustache a little grayer
all except his toupee
which is inexplicably more askew each time
someone I know dies, each uncle and
cousin and family friend spins his hairpiece
one more inch out of place,
frayed and uncombed, a taxidermized
creature of unknown origin only seen
in the presence of the recently deceased,
but now is not the time or place to mention
such a thing, so I enter the greeting line
on another American Thursday evening
and wonder how far that toupee will spin
by the time I’m the one up front, finally getting
that good sleep I’ve chased all these years

James H Duncan is the editor of Hobo Camp Review and the author of Talavera Sunsets (Bottlecap Press), Cistern Latitudes (Roadside Press), and We Are All Terminal But This Exit Is Mine (Unknown Press), among other books of poetry and fiction. He resides in upstate New York but travels to visit and write about indie bookstores for his blog, The Bookshop Hunter. For more, visit www.jameshduncan.com.