Another Poetic Funeral

LUCA PENNE

So you died and left a book of your own poems on the chair

and the goats butted the wall, trying to break into the barn

to get the dog, but the dog stood her ground ears alert.

as the walls kept falling and a lovely red-haired woman

stretched her long, long legs across two states and pulled on black panty hose.

The late sun bore down on dust and dust rose from the pit

as graves grew jealous and empty and a frog played a mean banjo.

The hymns lined the pews yet noisome odors gave us pause to consider our foul ways. Behind the barn, another horse cried for a bucket of oats. And some creature crushed blue eggs in dirt.

These funerals are murder, I muttered and smeared ash on my forehead. A minister read your poems to the fox stealing a chicken while the organist practiced origami in the vestibule and the asses brayed at the stained glass windows. Despite everything, your funeral went off without a hitch, the robins kneeling at the manger as little Jesus cock a doodled until dawn.