A Poem Unmeant for Death

They made my grandfather
Very beautiful
For something to be immersed in the dirt.
I swore more than once
That he’d sit up from his new bed,
Open his eyes,
And grin crookedly at me.

If I could remember his smile.

They were a rare gem.
I had the privilege
Only few times to see it,
And three accounts
Of good memories with them.

i:
Vague.
Arizona, the air warm and inviting.
Cool, clear water before us.
Clouds like twined cotton balls 
Floating over blue.
He jumps, and I tarry,
Hesitant.
After beckoning, he convinces
The small and wary child I was.
So I jump
And he catches me
Into the blue.

ii:
Around a kitchen table in Michigan,
He rasps and wheezes
While grandma repeats,
Again,
The card game rules;
And I wish I was back in the corner
Writing my heart out.
He plays a move twice.
She scolds him
Until a smirk from his lips
Breaks like my stifled giggle.

iii:
We hold hands
Around his chair.
Praying.
Crying.
I know this is our last time.
So I play his favorite melody
From a hymnal as old as himself.
I tell him I love him
And I tell him goodbye.

I wonder why they made him look
So pale and weak.
From the stories in the church
He is meek yet brave,
Discreet but loyal.

In the casket
He is ghastly,
Thin,
Wasted,
And numb.

I wish he hadn’t been
Put in a suit.
I wish he was in his favorite 
Pajama pants,
With the newscast humming in the background.
I wish he’d been buried
With these favorite things;
Or perhaps this poem
I never wrote to him.

But then,
Maybe it was meant
That this poem shouldn’t die 
With him.
For once a good man is gone,
So too is a piece
Of his vestige.