“ Gerald ” –
people still spoke his name,
sometimes,
occasionally,
infrequently,
but
in the softest possible way, always.
Handled the sentence in which it appeared
as if mohair, or silk.
He was gone before I started
gone from the workplace,
the town,
the world
one day as afternoon turned to evening
coming back from extension classes
for his diploma.
Motorbike + truck + inattention = death.
I was the inheritor,
after the inheritor.
His name was still on the staff board,
my predecessor’s removed before I commenced
mine, sometime between Monday and Friday of my last week
but Gerald’s remained.
Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry 