The Afterlife

I sit my uncle down in Stackhouse Cove,
his skull sunburning, for he's lost,
on the journey here, his knotted handkerchief.
I sit him down, adjust his emptied ribs

for all his old songs to whistle through,
smooth his heelbones into the sand
so nothing chafes. I sit him down
in the long-drawn-out of a tide so low

I doubt it will ever come in again,
and if he could speak, having been dead
so many years, he’d say Not bored, exactly,
just in a state of suspended animation

and still unable to think of a witty reply
I’d say nothing, dazzled by the far off glittery
unturning sea, both of us marvelling
at the terrible tedium of eternity.