After the sizzle and spit of my flesh going up
like bacon thrown on eight hundred degrees centigrade,
when my bones have been mashed to their final powder,
handed to you in such a civilised pot
and you’ve flushed
or scattered them – a fistful each –
in the front gardens of those you know hate me
(them that have front gardens; them that don’t
put a little of me quietly through their letter boxes) –

I will inhabit the air,
take the form of
the absence of certain smells;
the absence of my tannin caked mug
leaving brown rings behind itself
on the coffee table by the sofa;
the absence of wrong political predictions
I’ll no longer be around to deliver
with the wave of an absolute arm
during your favourite TV crime drama,
so you can hear neither
and wish I’d come with a mute button;
the absence of traces of shaving foam
kindly donated by me
in the now pristine bathroom sink
which will gleam at you like the teeth
of a presidential candidate
conceding defeat.

For my absence, like my presence,
will be the mess
you’ll never exactly succeed
in completely tidying away.

Photo Credit: PxHere