Madison Rye Progress

Too many suits move in too many lines.
They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed,
hunting crudites, canapés, bruscheta.
Fingers ferry food — fish, perhaps — finding
slack-jawed mouths already open,
squawking at wayward children
or bemoaning The Market,
whatever that may be.
At some point, who cares how long ago,
death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again.
Who knows how well they knew him,
their backs turned, studiously
deciding that he is no longer of them?
one could never guess.
We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps,
that the room is tastefully furnished,
the coffin silver, the bar, open,
quite good, and none of them are drunk yet,
or at least none look it.
“Good man, good man,” they mutter,
doing all they can to convince each other
through well-rehearsed performances,
that this must be the case.
The silently bereaved already sit graveside.