David Leo (b. 1948)
SELECTED POEMS
Eulogy
Today a friend died
Youth liedI’m not going to the wake
Really, for whose sake?Everyone has good words for the dead
Sure, he’d earned all that shall be saidI shall instead
Take a walk down a crowded street
Keeping pace, mindlessly
With the hurried feetIf you don’t know where
you’re going, any road can take you thereI don’t want to remember faces
or be identified
Nor places
by memory dignifiedI don’t wish to stop and stare
I declare, I don’t careIf this be an eulogy
My apologyToday a friend died
And I cried
by David Leo
from The Secret Life of a Dragonfly (2024)