The Funeral on my Phone

they had a feast/ a feast for the living

for the dead?

an endless murmuring refrain

on gatherings full of his grandchildren

on weddings of his nieces

ghosts of him in their blood and etchings of his face

neverlasting lights burned him that day/

forever in our midnight dreams/ whiling away

time with my aunt's whims and her braiding my hair/

love is love is love is her ghostly touch and fiery air

white whittled wood

red red redwood/ i can

not remember/ the wood they burned him

on/ cancer sucked his soul and he was a log/

of wood on/ a pile of wood

maybe he was cancer

his wife died hollowed out from inside out/

she was carried by her brother/she did not have cancer

I wasn’t there/ for his death, I live far away

I hope the next time I visit them

newness in decay, graves in bloom: nothing will be the same