My Way

My Way

Sam Keyes

The final bars play out. 
Someone coughs. 
Veneer gleams pallid 
Beneath fluorescent glare.
Within the strip lamps,  
A crispy cargo of flies, 
Deader than dead. 

After all, he
Did it his way.
Fake flowers blankly oversee
Another box of finished life.
The cough again, the
Polyester curtain closes.
A fly buzzes idly by.

Outside, the next batch,
Nearly ready now,
Smoking, fidgeting,
Fresh blooms strong-armed in
Typographic bondage.
“Memories live forever”,
He did it his way too;

Outside rotting flowers litter
Overgrown monuments.
Sinatra’s tinny anthem echoes
Earlier garden rebellion.
Smoke rises greasy in pale sky.
Father forgive them for
They know not what they do.

---

Sam Keyes
Writer & Photographer

Sam’s work has been published at The Gospel Coalition, BeThinking, and The Cultivating Project. Sam is a Patent Attorney and academic in the natural sciences, but words remain his first love. You can read more of his poems and essays at www.samuelkeyes.com, and follow him on Twitter at @samuelkeyes.

Photography by Glen Ardi