The Queen’s Burial

by Carl Watson

The English Queen was laid to rest
After weeks of pomp and circumstance.
Long queues of mourners
Lined the London streets in sympathy
As the trumpets of has-been Empire
Blew their fanfares, their folderols.
It cost the UK a pretty pound
To put her down in such style,
But good money was made,
And all her sins were forgiven.
TV specials played for days.

Meanwhile, somewhere in rural America,
Another John Doe had had enough,
Enough of the bruising loneliness,
Enough of debt’s weight, and the end of hope.
He drags an old oak door up
The wooded hill behind his house
With a harness of yellow nylon rope,
After painting the door in camouflage.
To match the ground vegetation.

He sits for a moment in the memories
Of all his storied wounds,
And the chronic pains accrued
Over years at thankless jobs,
Opens the bottle of Oxycodone
Saved up for this occasion,
Takes the prescribed medication
In one hard swallow,
Then sits to rest in the 4-ft. deep grave
He’d spent his last days digging.

He slides the oak door closed to the sky
Lies back and waits for the fog of forgetting.
Winter is coming, and no one will notice
His absence till spring, when warmer weather
Frees the scent of death from the damp earth,
Sprouting the seed of a new American Dream.