A man has died
like many other men today.
The man was a friend
of my father’s, a poker buddy
of his I associated
with the aftershave smell
of five men hunched over
on the guest room bed
shuffling around cards
and small banknotes
and the ashtray.
The man went to hajj
and came back with
a goatee on his chin and
a skull cap on his head
and still he went on shuffling
cards, banknotes, ashtray.
Banknotes, ashtray, cards.
Ashtray, cards, banknotes.
One day they stopped coming,
the men, the smoke,the clamor
and the aftershave smell they
brought with them.
One day my father became
a lonely man.
A lonelier man.
The man died today,
my mother told me.
Your father went
to the wrong mosque.
He kneeled and prayed,
and when he got up,
he realized he was
at the funeral of someone
he did not know.
A man has died
like many other men today.