Death on a suburban estate
by Lee Nash

Don't die on a Wednesday in mid-July
when you've just installed new double-glazing.
No one will notice, and no one will cry.
All else will continue: central heating,
insurance policies, hypericum.
Only your wife who finds you, red as brick
but cold as stone, will moan. A tripped alarm,
her voice will carry over the clean-picked
lawns, stop neighbors in their ceremony
of washing. Santa, who clung for his life
last Christmas, is replaced by a small tree –
fiber-optic glory glints off a knife:
she never used to carve, must find the knack.
Buckets of flowers edge the cul-de-sac.

(First published in The Road Not Taken, spring 2016)

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