A golden shovel with thanks to Robert Pinksy
Mourners array themselves around the room, disheveled. They
have not bothered with ties or jackets, no blouse met an iron. No one wants to tell
a priest not to speak well of the dead, but if it were me,
I’d break every fingernail on the gravedigger’s shovel before going under cushioned on lies. The
tables have been pushed to the room’s periphery, a whole world
of casseroles, hot dishes, starches. Here, the way we pay our respects is
to fill your mouth with all the things we said behind your back, a
divine act of transubstantiation, rancor unto funeral potatoes unto sorrow, like clock-
work. When he died, the widow clapped her hands, they say, said, “That’s
that, then,” and stood to begin her third act by winding
the bed sheets around him, her future out there somewhere, anywhere but down.