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Robert Cole

There is nothing funny about my dead grandfather.

Nothing funny about how professional it was.

How collected the doctors were.

How clean the place was kept.

Nothing funny about his last breath in the elevator.

That woman pounding on his chest when the doors opened up.

There’s nothing funny about the way they carted him back into his room

and swung him on his bed.

Nothing funny about my hysterical aunt,

all three of them,

standing there crying. 

Or not crying.

Nothing funny about me holding his hand after the fact.

Feeling the coldest feeling.

Feeling concrete covered in flesh covered in paint.

Nothing funny about the way I sat there,

beside a dead body,

not knowing what to do or how to behave.

Nothing at all funny about prying us away.

The way his body was softly becoming a thing that smells and

takes up space.  No longer

an actual person.  Nothing funny about knowing another dying man

would take his place in a couple of days.

There was nothing funny about his funeral.

Nothing funny about how he was in the Navy

and how my uncle found a vintage whistle

just like the one he lost in the war

to put in the coffin next to him:

If he should ever run into trouble.

Nothing funny about cancer.

Nothing funny about Alzheimer’s either.

Nothing funny about how my great grandfather had awful jokes

because he couldn’t remember how they went

like he couldn’t remember who I was

and what I was doing in his house.

But there was this one afternoon

he sat down at my chess board with a tray of lemon cookies.

I tried to play him but chess became checkergammon

and he said

            Looks like you got me.

And it was heartbreaking

because when I looked up

he had such a happy face

with little yellow crumbs around his mouth.

And it was just a little bit funny.