be-lates

i find that i usually miss
the important things,
to a degree
that is more
than being fashionably
late.
my be-lates.
everything on this time line is belated,
put off
since she
was so put off
in her bedroom
counting her last breaths
waiting for one of us to walk through
her door.
there are some occasions that
it is impossible to correct
being late for,
so unlike a party, a wedding,
or in this case, a birthday.
i proposed a cigarette
looking over this prose,
and passed it from myself
to the ghost
to your absence
and then to its grave of stubs
and ash...
today i find that the celebration of life
is more practical
than the bereavement of it
perhaps.