Funeral

#7NAPO Funeral

(quote from Frank X Walker’s-“Buring Albatross”)

“Standing close enough to kiss, we almost touch and pretend”

that we really didn’t want to despite the yearning in our hands;

for the closeness of the familial feel of fingers on face

my own wrapped around cheeks holding you still

while wiping a smudge off your chubby cheeks. Just a

mirror of my mothers, smiling in crooked disgust

at being tended to with a gentle assurance that just as

quickly, I might let you go before you are ready to leave.

I straighten the collar of your white shirt and smooth the

shoulders of the black suit, brushing off the invisible dust

That keeps my hands connected to you. My heart tied to the

strings that I braided with the third cord I suddenly found

dangling from the umbilical apron ties that my mother

left on the hospital bed before shedeparted for home.

© NP 4/07/11