Taking Death Lightly (Poetry)

She sat on the grass
in a summer dress
cigarette in hand
you would never guess
it’s a funeral

And her mother’s too
I had thought them close
yet her mood seemed light
bordering jocose
not a tear in sight

I was lost for words
couldn’t see the joke
for the cancer’s threat
wafting in her smoke
got my eyes all wet

The sheer thoughtlessness
of the show-off young
lacking due respect
not quite twenty-one
and her best friend gone

Irony is cruel
seen after the fact
her mum didn’t smoke
so no tit for tat
that child plays the fool