Requiem for Aunt May Poem by Ishion Hutchinson

A calm sign in the trees of May: she's dead,
not like this dirge staining the air, her name
recited in the camphor-house where the chalk
figurine, that haberdashery sphinx reclines,
riddled by the TV. There no one faces the calendar,
river-stone talks go under the bridge of condolences,
and land on the old sofa's shoulder. I, her water-child,
keep watch over her laminated Savior, nailed
into the wall, flipping a coin whose head promises
Daedalus. Someone pries open an album, the cocoon
postcards wail on the line, pronouncing, Aunt May—

baker, builder of the yellow stone house, your children
hatched wings while your face was bent in the oven.
The mixing bowls, the wooden spoons, the plastic
bride & groom, knew before the phone alarmed
the night your passing. So you passed, in a floral dress,
a shawl softly tied to your head, the house spring-cleaned.


II

Enters Daedalus, father, dressed in white, hands
in pockets, strolling through prayers and smoke
of the mourning wake. I listen: his limbs
are pure starch! On the veranda, eyeing
the gong-tormented sea, seaweeds streak
his beard, salt rimmed his apologies. I hesitate
at the labyrinth of father and son, red hurt
throbbing my ears from my fall on the poppy grounds,
fog swallowing all that was carried over
years of saying nothing. Silence, this flame
held back before erupting, as an oven after heat
has been sucked from it. I begin in silence
my life, then and there, as a ghost.