Poem Entrusted To Be By Lina S. R. Poem by RIC BASTASA

Neither door nor gray day-
light nor your daughter singing with you the family anthem -

Nothing at all, nothing could have warded off the resolute assassin.

The faithful wore danger on their faces
at your funeral. On their tongues, gratitude was sour candy

for their son who exposed what's opalescent
in the daily dung-heap of the news.

Almost everything, almost altered to keep me living the lie:

the wife daring me to refuse the last
look on the corpse, and myself

braving not even a singular stolen
glance at the wounds on the broken cask of a

face, and I, washing and combing my hair daily,
daily during your long wake.

One and a dozen shrieking years across and over
the glistening offal of this ferocious island, and I,

I haven't begun grieving yet.