In memory of my father, Stanley Poindexter, who passed away February 16, 2014.

Rhonda Denise Johnson is an award winning poet and short story writer. She is now two thirds finished her third book. Be sure to pick up a copy of her first two books, Speaking for the Child: An Autobiography and a Challenge and The Crossroads of Time, at Amazon.com by clicking here.

Name of the deceased
Stanley LeRoi Poindexter
It didn’t seem right

To see his name there
Deceased is such a cold word
So anonymous

Death didn't seem real
Til that word popped out at me
Deceased gone for good

For 48 years
Though miles separated us
He was always here

Somewhere on this Earth
A telephone call away
And I’d hear his voice

They never knew him
He was to them just a name
A deceased person

I look at the name
I remember who he was
Father living soul

On his seventieth birthday
He looked around and said
This is ridiculous
He hadn’t expected
To live so long

One month shy
Of seventy five
He went forth by day
I hadn’t expected him
To go so soon