for a wake still in my mind. All of the guests (very Catholic)
would not weep from their seats. They were just “Amen”-ing
under their breaths, undulating with their fans, and sick
with the urge to leave the room, with a quick
gesture of hands on hearts, chests held tight.
And the mass became a mystery, a magic trick
of disappearing words (the priest spoke Latin), light
in multicolored ecstasy, and the red flight
of hibiscus (satin in my hands). I should have written
it all down from that very moment; the bitterness and bite
of knowing so little about where the body was burdened
with the quick neatness of a plaque, cement and lime.
There was more than this end of the rhyme.
Writer/Reader/Poet/Dreamer... Kendall is a college instructor, experimenter with the written word, and someone who thinks that books are worth saving. (Also: librarians and snail mail—damn you, Canada Post and certain school boards!) I just hope that someone gets a laugh and enjoys my work...
