[Poem] Business

Your death is my business
I thrive on the dead
You are no more, they grieve
But that’s my butter and bread

‘fore the soil on your grave dries
‘fore the embers of your pyre die
I retrieve all that you left behind
with a probing keen eye

I care not what you bequeathed
and to whom has the bounty gone
you may wonder what I do
and on which side am I on

I look for in your remains
what you ever did by choice
or were compelled to carry out
by force or by a divine voice

I gather one and all
and string them in a thread
Remember, I just told you
It’s my butter, it’s my bread

They paid him through their nose
when “Death at my doorstep”, he wrote
But the nobody that I am
My obituaries, they don’t quote


Vijay © 5th July, 2006

P.S. Due apologies to Khushwant Singh-
The author of “Death at my doorsteps”