The Dead Have The Last Laugh Poem by Diana Thoresen

Perhaps the dead have the last laugh over us --
Daughters bitterly weeping in front of Jesus in an old church,

(merciful Jesus, merciful Jesus, merciful Jesus)

Unknown poor relations, pond scum grifters, co-workers
(gone fishing and unable to attend the cremation ceremony
at such short notice) , well-meaning relatives (I knew she'd take
it real hard. Has she managed to eat and sleep at last?
You look like your father so much, it's uncanny) , therapists
Bearing tranquilizer prescriptions, numinous yoga teachers, oh sattvic touch,

Oh grief boundless everlasting oceanic.

The living say people things and do people things,
They bristle with a most jarring, annoying, persnickety sort of aliveness;
What of his estate? Why is she crying in church? Must be a war widow.
Well, she's real pretty. We all lost a good man. He was depressed over the divorce.
He was going on a business trip in June.
He loathed this freakish endless winter and looked forward to summer.
He planted two apple trees. He was such an avid gardener.

I do not care for my father's peonies, tulips, clematises --
Elated, I spend days wrapped in his new pearlescent world;
Death is sweetness, soft falling feathers, a joy and lightness of being
Unparalleled, undisturbed, unimaginable;
Happy Birthday, Dad.

The dead boyishly wink at us through a Mahleresque staccato
Of a freshly printed pale pinkish death certificate --
Born Donetsk, September 23,1956, died St Petersburg
May 21,2026: ewig, ewig, ewig, Ewigkeit -- inky crow feathers again

The dead are playful with ghostly phone calls beyond the grave,
Strangely found objects that have emotional significance to you
And you alone, the dead are funny, silly, impish, impossible;

The dead know things, the dead take their time as they now
Whisper and now shout in repeating numbers, precognitive dreams, crows
Touching your face after your last phone conversation
(duration: 11 minutes,33 seconds) months before
They are even dead.

The dead are very much alright and we are not alright at all.

I go downstairs to sit in the yard and chain smoke
And I watch my father morph into a solemn,
Unfathomable Osiris as the night reluctantly falls
In a tremulous never-quite-night-St Petersburg June kind of way.

Their brilliance, their godawful brilliance.