Death snatched all the voices
Sounds of tears pattering
on the pews we kneel at.
Doesn't matter what you do
All they remember is the times you weren't high.
The brief childhood you had,
in and out of rehab.
Funny how we all forget
the major things, heroin
still in your veins.
A tar clogged stopping your heart.
Your dealer breaths
down my neck passing me pills.
A sour taste envelops my mouth.
What could be worse?
Two deaths at a funeral.
Soon enough our family plot
grows, the grass thickens.
Men at My Father Funeral By: William Matthews
The ones his age who shook my hand
on their way out sent fear along
my arm like heroin. These weren’t
men mute about their feelings,
or what’s a body language for?
And I, the glib one, who’d stood
with my back to my father’s body
and praised the heart that attacked him?
I’d made my stab at elegy,
the flesh made word: the very spit
in my mouth was sour with ruth
and eloquence. What could be worse?
Silence, the anthem of my father’s
new country. And thus this babble,
like a dial tone, from our bodies.
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