‘I have seen the retreat of the black car’

C.D. Wright, Our Dust

I have touched the polished wood of a pitch pine coffin too many times,

I have spent time in hushed rooms

with dead people not looking at all

like themselves.

Like many others I have helped bury

my parents, aunts, uncles, grandmothers,

friends and lovers. So far I have been spared

the sight of a dead sibling

lying still in the satin-lined box,

but it is coming. I know it is coming.

I have stood in line shoulder to shoulder

with the remains of my family

and accepted in the wake of their words

the murmur of consolation,

I too have been the consoler to other families’

parade of pain.

I have stood at the windy graveside,

(it is always windy)

and gazed into the depths

of freshly opened earth.

That black car now empty, holding

itself squat and at bay

from the edge of upturned grasses.

Jean O'Brien's new and selected Fish on a Bicycle (Salmon) was published last year.