They tell me that Elvis is dead,

they showed me the carefully

snipped out press cuttings

they had saved since

the dreadful news broke,

back in ’77, every line

preserved, poured over,

taken out every now and then

and the days of tears that follow,

a single one

slowly drifting down the face

when it hurt too much

as I see them close the thumbed

to death, barely hanging on scrapbooks

and draws and bloated cupboards of memorabilia;

floods when the grief of Elvis