At  The Casket of My Son

                  Like a Mexican Jesus
                  you lie wooden in your denim
                  jeans and clean blue shirt.
                  Can words follow the shape of
                  the texture of
                  your cool hard hands?
                  Long graceful fingers
                  perfectly carved
                  curve, one hand over
                  The other across your stomach.
                  I trace their shape with my
                  own fingers ­ cold
                  Seeps outward from your
                  hands into my neck
                  my chest
                  And I am abstracted
                  as remote from my
                  body as you are yours, yet
                  I cannot look at your face again
                  cannot take into my eyes your eyes
                  sewn, sealed, shut, forever.

                           
                                                    Heywood Williams

				October 13, 1989

e-mail me at ppgfh@hotmail.com