Diane Webster
FUNERAL
Closet lovers hover like window shoppers.
Sit with the family, sit with friends.
Too many people to hide feelings I can’t hide.
Damn their whispers! Damn the closet dust
clinging like ashes to ashes to my soles.
My lover died. They can’t hurt me anymore.
When night grief subsides to sunrise and dew,
I won’t care what anyone says.
I won’t regret not being buried beside her,
we had more between us than bodies.
When our ashes whirl together in wind,
I’ll never worry about my place again.
Author’s Comment: Originally “Funeral” was part of a series of poems I tried to get published as a long poem, but it never got any positive responses so I split it into individual poems. Some have been published; some are still awaiting acceptance. After a lifetime of hiding a relationship, I wondered how a person handles the funeral where no one knows your relationship, your feelings. Should you continue to hide the feelings, the love or yell, “Screw it!” and reveal everything? After all, the most important person in your life is already gone. What more can they do to you?
Wild Goose Poetry Review 