Noise Under Glass Poem by Terence Winch

An old man arrived at my door with light bulbs.
I opened the door a crack
and asked what he wanted. He said he wanted
to tell me that when a man dies,
his body is placed in the middle
of the men's lavatory, with two urinals side by side.
I had never heard this before, and was happy to get
the word. I stood in the hallway with him,
hoping my friends couldn't hear him. Finally, he departed.

The old man crept through the mysterious grass
of the bush and put the coffee right here
on this table. We sat on French chairs
in the middle of the hut while the bodyguards
walked around the body sprinkling milk and murmuring
'I'll have some coffee too, I'll have some coffee too.'
Nobody said anything about the funeral.

I am restless, now that the old man is gone.
My entourage yeses me to death.
I am bored. As the soul of my mother was taken
into that greater territory of the self, I lay
on the bed watching 'Entertainment Tonight'
with the sound off, trying to remember
something, anything, about her.