exequy

I. the communion

the others don’t tell you anything

though Bob, or whatever his name is,

has been here long enough

to know where they keep the folding chairs.

someone brought a ham

you need to understand this part,

the mirroring of the thing

the way the dead also gather

also mill around with paper plates

and they also don’t know what to do with their hands.

the woman by the window says

it gets easier to watch

and I believe her because

it’s easy to believe someone who has

no reason to lie anymore.

there is something like wine here…

not wine, but the idea of it

the warmth of a third glass

the loosening.

Bob raises his glass

in the direction of the living room below

and we all do the same

and it is the strangest toast

I have ever been a part of

but also the most honest.

my daughter laughs and covers her mouth

and we laugh up here, too

because we can finally afford to–

grief has no jurisdiction on this side

and the laugh is just the laugh

just hers

just perfect.

II. the inventory

I am alone in this

just like the way a house is alone

after the last light goes out.

the minister is saying things about me

that are almost true–

close enough to make me lean forward

wrong enough to make me

want to raise my hand.

my sister is in the third pew

doing the thing with her jaw

she does when she’s keeping it together

i know that jaw.

i have watched it my whole life.

nobody told me it would be this:

not dark,

but not bright,

just the specific ache

of a window you can’t open

looking into a room you know by heart.

they play the song I asked for

someone in the back

doesn’t know it

and hums the wrong melody

i want to be annoyed

and almost am.

my daughter looks up

at nothing

at the place where the ceiling

meets the wall

and holds it for a moment

and I think:

she knows something

and then: she’ll forget

and then: that’s alright.

my car is still in the driveway

with the low tire.

I keep coming back to that…

the ordinary, unfinished thing

that nobody will understand

is the one thing I can’t let go of.

outside, a bird lands

on the window sill

and leaves…

I stay.

III. the scattering

this is what we didn’t know:

you don’t go somewhere

you go into them

a splinter of light

in the chest of everyone

who ever said your name

like it mattered.

and the funeral

is the only moment after dying

that you are almost whole again–

because they are all in one room.

I am in my daughters hands

when she smooths her dress

I am in my sisters jaw

the locked thing

the held thing

I am in the way my wife

touches the order of service

with one finger

like she is checking

if it’s real.

I am distributed like something broken carefully

not shattered…

scattered.

the way you scatter seed.

the way light scatters

through a door left open

just enough.

the minster speaks

and my son looks up

and in that looking

I am briefly luminous–

every fragment of me

leaning toward each other,

the whole approximate shape of me

reassembled for a moment

in one ordinary room

full of bad coffee

the ham someone brought

and my people.

my people.

my people.

before they go home

and carry me with them into their separate lives

and i become

the thing they can’t name

the thing that makes them stop sometimes

in the middle of an ordinary day

and look up.