At the Funeral

His eyes were bleak, like hope had never crossed their path – ever;

His fingers were mere bones, covered by baggy skin burnt a chocolate brown;

A million lines crisscrossing his skin told tales of a life spent mourning countless losses;

A dirty, tattered cloth, torn and muddy covered his head and face, hiding its ignominy in tattered fringes;

She looked at him, her doe eyes compassionate and her smile luscious, full of hope;

He stared back with hooded unseeing eyes blazing dark fire, sunk in cavernous grief;

It was impossible to guess his age as it was not easy to guess hers;

The grooves around his mouth and the cracks on his feet spoke of a hard life;

Her milk white soft arms and long, smooth neck whispered luxury;

Her smile tentative, she looked once more at him through the lenses of her expensive camera;

The fire blazed and danced in a pagan ritual between them, holding them captive, enthralled;

His eyes reflected the inferno as he looked up letting a tear leak and touch his cheek like a child’s wet kiss;

Her camera clicked at high speed capturing the sorrow of a father mourning his son;

Fire leaped off the pyre, perhaps a son’s last embrace, reaching out for the father who’d loved him beyond reason;

The camera clicked faster as the grieving man jumped back from the licking flames;

They were devouring his son’s body while he watched from a safe distance unlike earlier when he would jump in to save the boy.

Her camera captured it all, saving it for an award-winning show at a stone cold gallery somewhere in Italy or France.

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