The last laugh

I wonder what you dream of
looking out at Lake Ontario
are your dreams the flip side
of the nightmares I still endure?
Do you even remember me?

How can it be that after all these years
you hold such sway over me
that hearing of you falling ill
should unravel something inside
and start that damn tape playing again

You see I thought I was leaving
all this behind me if not completely
then at least most of the time
except when, well there's a turn of the head
or a touch misplaced, a strange smell

Whisky, beer, pipe smoke and sweat
And very large hands with hard palms
Or a voice too much like yours was
Although I suspect it's quite different now
Now that you're dying in peace

And that's the rub of it somehow
that you have peace whilst we don't
and that is so bloody unfair, unjust
unwinding this tight coil inside me
might take a while yet, damn you.

I won't let it be that this continues
to be the only fucking thing I write about
or think about or dream about or ...
I shall heal despite you, you know
and then I'll laugh with my brother