(Past Due)

February always finds you folding
local papers open to the faces "passed away,"
to wonder what they're holding in those hands we're never shown.
The places formal photographs refuse to mention.
His tiny feet, that birthmark on her knee.
The tyranny of framing our attention with all the eyes their eyes no longer see.
And darkness comes too early, you won't find the many things you owe these latest dead:
a borrowed book, that cheque you didn't sign.
The tools to be believed with, beloved.
Give what you can: to keep, to comfort this plain fear you can't extinguish or dismiss.