Coded Memories
          ---------------

          I scanned a man's dead wife today,
          three hundred dots per inch
          in coded memories 
          to paper on his screen,
          lest he forget
          (as if he could).

          So, I remember Rob, my friend
          of forty years, whose wife
          died thirteen years ago.
          Her tangled ghost still strokes
          his greying hair.

          And I remember John, who clutched
          his fatty heart one night
          while heeding nature's call,
          whose poor wife found him cold
          as bathroom tile.

          And Evelyn, who died of rotted lungs
          just months ago, and Mary,
          scattered bloody on the road.

          So many people nothing more 
          than tears.