The Miner’s Wake

In memoriam: E.P.

The small ones squirmed in suits and dresses,

wrapped their rosaries round the chair legs,

tapped the walls with squeaky shoes.

But their widowed mother, at thirty-four,

had mastered every pose of mourning,

plodding the sadness like an ox through mud.

Her mind ran well ahead of her heart,

making calculations of the years without him

that stretched before her like a humid summer.

The walnut coffin honeyed in sunlight;

calla lilies bloomed over silk and satin.

Nuns cried heaven into their hands

while I, a nephew with my lesser grief,

sat by a window, watching pigeons

settle onto slag like summer snow.