Reply #18: Part two:

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

It was January.

A cold rain fell and we played Enya.

Her children rode with me to the cemetery.
I made Promises.

The crowd was strange.
Her parent's friends from church,
Her friends from the street,
And people in between.

The drugs had made her heavy
and the mud was slick.

I panicked thinking
I might drop her.

And fall into the hole.

Introducing her to the earth
moments too soon.

And maybe dying in the process.

It didn't happen.
Nothing did.

The service went as planned.









I left and made talk with wealthy people who remembered her from Sunday School.



But wouldn't have given her the time of day.


Until she paid her price.