The beloved deceased was—honestly—
a pain. Everyone chuckles, relieved. I’m
past smelling the incense, can actually
taste it. They’ll fire it up again to roll the

casket out. There’s your big show: a sad-
faced woman priest walking through the
haze, chanting ancient prayers. You know—
the magic. I’ll barely be able to breathe

again. But now, the roast: true tales
of how full he poured wine glasses. Or
how hilarious it was when she started
to forget things. Dense, smoke-furred,

churchy air, light-struck folds in some
saint’s stained-glass robe: amber, blue,
sepia. Sure—everyone’s fine, all of us
bearing up. In our own eulogies we’ll

be praised for our ability to take a joke.
Outside, noon and a glossy onyx train of
idling SUV’s. Next door's crowded deli.
The modest, quiet clarity of empty trees.

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Christine Potter lives in a very old house in New York’s Hudson River Valley. Her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Mobius, Eclectica, Kestrel, Autumn Sky, Poetry Daily, Third Wednesday, The Midwest Quarterly, Consequence, and was featured on ABC Radio News. She has poems forthcoming in Amethyst. Her time-traveling young adult series, The Bean Books, is published by Evernight Teen, and her most recent collection of poems, Unforgetting, is on Kelsay Books.

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