how old and what killed him?

the obituaries

are very stingy

with telling us the cause

of death. 

they keep it on the downlow

these days, but

we want to know how,

or why

a person died.

we scour the small print

to find

what we're looking for,

but with no

success. it's exasperating.

we want to know their

ages too.

just to get a feel

on how to dodge our

ending when

it's our time to be next.