Visit to an Unmarked Grave - Ed Ahern

A while ago this friend died alone.

Maybe drunk, maybe deliberately.

No one visited him for three weeks,

so he rotted on a sofa.

We shared a secretive calling,

close friends and interests

and a serious dependency,

but not his dying.

His lived distantly enough

from my life that I doled out

help and companionship

as the occasions arose.

At the end, he’d run out of

money, health and work.

Unable to remake his life,

he brought it to a close.

His sister said good riddance

and his debtors complained,

but we few knew the man

inside the flaws and mourned.

Bio:

Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over two hundred fifty stories and poems published so far, and six books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of six review editors.