Time reverses after a funeral

We held sparks in hand, reminded some fires render

invisible the visible. Passing burial plots, we lit these

paper receipts to ash. Before we arrived, there were nurses

in new hairdos, flowers wrapped in plastic,

and the painting you'd done of us, all out of shapes

of the letter M. The coffee in plastic cups

was potable with plenty of sugar crystals,

and the air was calm with your pulse read and kept

to a quiet march. Watch this we heard you say

as you flicked your thumb

​

on the switch before lighting a birthday candle

with two cake knives all in one hand. We’d needed

to tell you something. Across the country, children cried

over broken toys, grapes grew round besides

foxgloves, red amaranths on purple stalks could almost

scale our house's wall, and the moon rose by the mountains

again, thrown around like a ball. At the end,

you disliked having visitors, blind as justice

with a bible and a sword in her hands. What were you saying?

I said, I forgot. Could we talk later instead?