It might as well be written in paraffin, she said,
the way this will all burn between us
Uncle Nathan would not regret choosing the white athletic socks
as an accoutrement to his burial suit,
nor his choice of “Love in Vain”
at his memorial service
and there he is, with a lavish depiction of goldfish
scales on his bow tie,
Yves Saint Laurent tidal-gray shirt and a fleur-de-lis
stitched
on the breast pocket of his forty-year-old wedding jacket
the nieces will be outraged and
the nephews, not so much
did he have any money
who was he, anyway?
might as well be buried
between two Valencia orange crates
as between these two half-grieving ex-wives
who study the pink in each other’s blouse:
Dee, the round, idiosyncratic blonde, fifteen years
younger than he / a subscriber to three
plant-based leggings franchises
and
Dorian, the angular other blonde, twenty-seven, smarter
than everyone else in the room, who still cannot measure
the time it took for him to dissolve their
prenup
he kept folded photocopies of his parents’
obituaries in his wallet and they have turned brown
and unimportantly crisp — like well-preserved October
leaves, or Ore-Ida tater tots
and
he kept his necessary papers — driver’s license,
blood donor card, theater
tickets — in his left shoe / told his grandchildren
he was wounded in some war / hence the perpetual
limp
and now
a flourish of ghosts gather
at the dais
today we say goodbye to
a fine man…
Aunt Marlene, a flask of high-octane bourbon
in the confounding folds of her dress / takes
a petite swallow / she’ll be damned
if she shares it with the impotent man pretending
to be her husband two seats down
from that shaggy empirical redhead
he tries to impress with the cut of his
motorcycle boots
in the sixty-seventh and final mortal year of our dear
Uncle Nathan
and then
there is that sacred moment between
‘can you give me’
and the conspicuous dirty silence,
when all the introspective heartbeats and
the slightly humid exclamations
stop
and
the sweat dangles from the lip
the tear struggles to define itself and fall
in a meaningful display of public mourning
and
the voice becomes
a bellicose yowl of unashamed grief
and
eternity is, all at once, undressed / then clothed
between the dry heaves of bored deprivation /pity,
and then
the sky pulls back its pretty laced veil
to reveal its demanding blistered face
‘an amen for brother Nathan?’
and amen
and
the nieces / nephews
stare at each other on their cellphones confused
and then make their plans
for when this
boring shit is over
That was an awesome read! The delightfully crude ending . . . so well done and disturbing!
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Thank you, I’m glad you liked it. 🙂
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So stark and ignoble. And a generation gap as old as time. Amazing writing, Steven.
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Thanks, Diana. The moments are sometimes quite loud.
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I love your quirky yet authentic phrases.
This! > “…a subscriber to three
plant-based leggings franchises”
This> “…like well-preserved October
leaves, or Ore-Ida tater tots”
And many others.
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Thanks, Mary. I guess the clutter in my head has to go somewhere. 🙂
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Yes!
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You wield a very sharp pen! Oh, what goes on in our minds at funerals. I must say, I quite like Uncle Nathan.
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Thanks very much. 🙂
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You’re welcome. 🙂
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