[Newspoetry] my first obituary

[Anne Bargar]

Richard's Last Burrito

9:31 AM Thursday 200 block of east Oregon, ambulance assist

	Richard's last burrito is still in the refrigerator	
	One of his few possessions, no one has eaten it yet

	we haven't moved the pile of clothes on the floor, 
	or gathered up the papers on the shelf, 
	or washed the glass still sitting in the room.
	or found out how he died, 
	or why the police confiscated our answering machine tape
	or how he ended up with said monkey on said back.

Ambulance assist 9:31 AM Urbana East Oregon 200 block on a delightful
spring morning indeed

 
	until work called for the third time and Tim went and opened his door 
	there was no clue as to what might be amiss
	In his room the light was still on; 
	if I had peeked in the window I would have found him,
	unmoving,
	in a sleeping bag

Police crawling all over the house 9:35 AM Thursday morning in Urbana
assisting ambulance 

			INSTRUCTIONS TO POLICE:

ask lots of questions poke your head uninvited in every corner subtly
treat everyone as a suspect ask probing questions look for gaping
inconsistencies.  

Take everyone's testimony and put it together to make an incomplete
picture of someone any of them barely knew, thus creating an incomplete
image of that individual.

	Ben Stone says its bad mojo to eat a dead man's last burrito.
	Maybe that's why it lingers.