Waiting For Eternity Poem by Patti Masterman

Like sheets hung in a haunted house
Impersonating local ghosts,
The clothes of the dead, too, still hang there
Nothing ever moves now, no more jostling for space
No laundry or dry cleaning tabs
No tailoring, or replacing lost buttons;
When buttons fall off, it's like a tree falling
In the forest, where there is none to hear it.
Lying primly against the pleats and darts, the tucks and ruffles,
The empty folds are limp, almost an accusation
The fancier things are no more privileged here,
Than the common working clothes
Daylight and moonlight now out of reach forever,
Only time and dust will fade these colors
And the moths who find their way in will enjoy an occasional meal
The life the garments once possessed, vicariously
Has left watermarks; a stigmata upon them-
That could speak of the closeness of a warm, living body
Which filled and moved them,
Leant to them its history:
Stray tears which rolled down inside the collars, and the laughter:
Coming without warning, moving the seams back and forth;
A game of musical chairs no one noticed.
The faint glow of the days outside, arriving and fading away,
Never comes into the dark recesses of the clothes closet;
Could be in another world, for all the difference it makes.
Did the pants ever wish that they could run,
Jump onto the funeral pyre, too?
Did the shirts wish they could fold themselves forever,
Into one last embrace? Did the dresses hang longer,
With an elegant remorse?
But no, there they remain as usual
Suspended from their metal gallows
The decomposition of the clothing
Lasting something very near to eternity