Alas

Alas for the drugs
you will not eat, alas
for your dark appetites
that will not be fed —

alas for a modern need
to use an archaic word
for this slight grief, for this raw fact:
we’ve come up with no better word

to lament a passage
so anticipated as yours.
Alas was the key word of your life,
what we said whenever we saw you;

alas, alas that we still have to call it out,
put breath to the ancient word that openly grieves
and regrets at once the simple fact
that you have existed and now are gone.