Dressing for the Funeral

“On the shoulders of time, ever growing old.”

                                                                   Bob Kaufman

The sun is rising in the misty east

outside the widow’s bedroom window.

Her undergarments have been stepped in and strapped on,

black dress zipped.

NPR, like any other morning,

sympathetic voices trying to swallow concern.

One last latching, the pearl necklace,

a birthday gift, her fortieth, come and gone.