At her funeral we only spoke
In platitudes—
Like she would judge us for our memories
But when she was in the ground, out of earshot
Nothing changed
Cemeteries make us grievers
When we left for her sister’s house across the street
and stepped off grass and onto pavement
We turned into people.
People talk.
When we were children, our parents went to Bible studies to
sit along the perimeter of a living room and talk to each other.
We reverted and sat
On sofas
folding chairs
pillows
each other.
In over-occupied rooms we belong.
Together,
We built her narrative.
If we had meant to, we would have hired a stenographer.
We didn’t, so she lives
in people, not paper
But paper melts and people die and
We will be forgotten, too.
In this poem I attempted to convey the joint feeling of emptiness and comradery that is often present in a group of people after a funeral. I am a bit unsure of the effectiveness of the form of this poem; I tend to rely on the imposed structures found in limericks or sonnets, and so I am not very familiar with writing free verse.
you did a good job capturing the feel of a wake here, at least as they are within my family. The clumps and clusters of folks, standing around, not entirely sure what to say to each other is probably a universal thing at these types of events. I love the image of paper melting, it gives such a sense of fragility to the form we wear as humans. I like the stanza form you've used, free verse works very well for this.
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