My grandma, back there in her sixties,
would check them in the Herald.
At ninety-nine, she had no need.

These days we read them on the net
but paper's more the point —
the way it yellows in a week

when left on the verandah.
The birth-dates are a leading edge,
each week a little closer.

We note the tighter numbers too —
the motorbikes, the early cancers,
the back-lane overdoses.

We read instructions re the flowers,
the charities ‘in lieu'
hinting at what's not spelt out.

We check the mawkishness and all
the several sorts of doggerel
that make a poet wince.

The grandiose, the self-effacing
are all there with their inch or three.
You think perhaps to write your own,

get in before the well-intentioned.
What'd be the least you'd need?
A phrase or two not too untrue

to what you think you were?
But even that would be too much.
First and last name? Dates with dash?

The poetry is done already.
Let's not give way to sentiment.
It's all a slow sun going over.