After the Funeral by John Grey
An old aunt pulled on my ear, and Kit just sat there, with the black neighbor with rain pouring hard and the wind was no prize. Now what will you do? she asked, fascinated, I think, by my new parentless domain. I’ll hop down on the coffin lid by the river. I'll grip the pole; I'll throw a string out into the river I was suddenly an orphan in search of catfish. Kit was there, resting on the sideboard - stiff as fir trees. as helpful as tears of mud, as the undead. Mourners were spaced apart like canapés on a tray. Night buried mama in her evening dress - an old model sinking into the certainty of soil. So what will I remember sometime preacher, sometime gravedigger? The dark-limbed thrash of oaks? 'Hie fish on a cracker nibbling its way to death? The rain? The wind? The living and the dead - there was a fine line between us. I kept reciting, when I am lonely, when you are lonely, when I am twice as lonely, with hook and writhing worm tossed into the night sky - no bites, no assurances, no takers.
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John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Stillwater Review and Big Muddy Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Columbia College Literary Review and Spoon River Poetry Review.
Photo credit: Dirk Dreyer www.dreyerpictures.com