I knew I wouldn’t see you
until the funeral,
until all the water in the room
was still, meniscus
tense and blanketed with dust. But blessed
none the less. This is what they mean
by “mystery” isn’t it?
This is what they mean by –
I won’t say it. I know you are
a good husband
and now I am a good wife.
 
Here we are funerary,
surrounded by old friends become mourners
and us: hollowed out with the unknown,
the secret.
 
And us: grateful for pockets, for purses,
for fat stores
that build up over time in our hips
and bellies.
 
And us: grateful for the lines on my face,
for the lines
of the grieving creating order
in our chaos,
 
grateful for our bored children
making us too busy
to talk, to say, to have
a pointed moment
where our eyes do not quite meet,
where our eyes –
 
let me leave before I say
something else.
Let me stop before I become mean,
cool water filling basins ‘round the room for us
to dip our hands in, to cross our closed eyes,
to fill our mouths with what is both cold
and warm.
 
We are instructed to pray for the dead.
I pray to be free from – I won’t say sin.
I won’t ask about your father,
I won’t stay too long, here, smoking.
I quit a long time ago, and so did you. Let’s go back
into the room, into not knowing.
Let’s wrap ourselves more deeply in this death.
 
Let’s die
never speaking, but always holding
in our pockets, in our purses, in the fat
that’s building around our hearts,
in the tension around our bent bones, the little skin
holding things in place, the gem of this,
the grain of rice that it is, the guitar pick
somewhere in some jewelry box,
the acorn you keep finding in your shoe.