The Funeral Right
Two scrapbooks lay open
in margins of a casket's shadow
treating dying differently.
One is stoic; one is clay.
I hate to own our bunker life
honesty's fuhrer isn't nice.
Here we have the abscess grief.
All these bugs inside a bubble
dodging moons with piercing rays.
Afraid to land on real times.
Craving passive oxygen.
This judgment seat begins to itch.
Take down screens
break a window, anything.
We'll use our feet to sweep raw glass
We step across each other's tears
their corpses merely muddy possums
sitting in a drying ditch.
Family knots that should be braids.
Deceased should gather what's alive
bring it to epitome.
Match of liquor stays our bunker
drowning out impending depth.
A false sense of brightness rules.
I want to live in the other text
one truer to the inside pain;
not glued to spraying nests of bees.
They have grown from stings and swells
earth rebuilt from tidal waves
gracing the ground with poignancy.
Their widows are loved
and held and patted to sleep
not some spider on a sill.
Janet I. Buck