the last row

The last row was empty
except for me

I stayed there way too long
and the hard wood
misshaped my ass
because I sat there
for
hours
even after the lights turned out
and I got locked
inside

alone
in the church
with your casket
after everyone else
filed out
with tears and memories

When you told me you died
in the war
I believed you
but now that I think of it
I never saw you in uniform

I thought it strange when
I saw you at the local parade
leading a troop of boy scouts
a few years later

But maybe you had
a doppelgänger
who was all the things
you said
you
weren’t

I became more far-sighted
the older
I got
so I could see you more clearly now
than I did 50 years ago

The makeup the mortician applied
was another façade
you would have either hated
or loved

This was a meeting
I thought would yield
a different result

But I just quarreled with the devil
yet again
wondering if you
had made a deal
to come back again

When I got home
you were
sitting at
my dining room table
refusing to answer
when I asked you what you
were doing

and I reminded
myself
to go to your funeral again
tomorrow
to sit in
the last row
to live this day over again
for another
50 years