OFTEN WHEN I LAUGH.

ON LAUGHING AFTER THE DEATH OF A SON.

Often when I laugh
at something funny
either on TV
or book

or conversation,
I pause and feel
guilty that
after your death,

my dear one,
my son,
that humour
could still rear

its head
and cause
my laughter,
as if my laughing

was a kind
of betrayal
of my grief
or a hint

of forgetting you
or a watering down
of the pain I feel.
But it is not,

no less pain is there,
the grief still bites
as strong,
its teeth still sharp

as shark's jaws,
and as for
forgetting you,
my son,

more chance
of forgetting
self or my
own image wiped

from memory's hold.
Laughter's medicine
cannot dull
grief's ache or pain

or bring you
back again,
but it permits
a moment or

two or so
for me to close
my eyes or mind
and let it flow

in a calmer sea,
when there was you
alive and well
and happier me.