A Headstone Forever Blank

He died that night

In a cheap motel

In Maryville Tennessee

$35.00 Karma mixed with

The smell of curry
Coming from the front office

No one would ever understand

Why he chose to die here

Especially those few

Who claimed to know him well

The gravel parking lot

The towels

You could see through

And the lawn chairs inside

For furniture

Made the connection, and the

Endless search

Real

In a way it hadn’t been before

As he sat outside his room

Thinking about the end

The local construction workers

Remembered his name

As they called out to him

At the end of their day

Marking their time

By a weekly rate

In their rooms down the hall

They remembered the little things

His own family

Had forgotten

Or not so little

 

AND THEN HE DIED

In his $35.00 hotel room

His fortune, just buried memory

With its headstone forever blank

 

(Newport Tennessee: April, 2013)