The phone rings and my mother’s smile
widens, almost microscopically,
and she says, “It’s rude to talk on the phone during dinner”.
So it’s song goes still and we go
home and my mother’s eyes widen and I know before she speaks.
But her tongue is still
a broken dam that’s holding
death and I know taking His name in vain is wrong but I hear my own lips unleashing a flood, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” more prayer than profanity.
My mouth widens like a funeral wreath,
a weeping half moon, and I am
all black and rosary and Friday morning and I have never
seen my father cry and every nebula inside my bones collapses.
(“Memorial service” is an ill-fitting descriptor.)
The faces blend, the strange
familiar, the familiar strange, and
as they look at me their eyes widen
(“I’m sorry for your loss.”)
If apologies could resurrect, you
would be a Lazarus.
My grandmother’s arms widen to bear
the weight of our mourning, martyr, McDaniel, matriarch.
Your spirit dances through the sanctuary, part curse, part comfort, smile widening as you waltz with your grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles.
The church exhales as we give
up your ghost, sweating out prayers and confessions like they’re last rites, tantric and tired from carrying this cross.
We are enraptured and dizzy as I spin
worlds where we’re still together.
Blood and water, honey and palm wine, mix to become a holy oil to lay you to rest.
Hymns echo like blessed wailing, chaos meeting peace on its way to the pulpit, pulling sinner and saint to their feet, twisting
and twirling into the madness,
my eyes releasing an ocean of saltwater stars
as heaven widens for you.