When we come home after the funeral, someone is waiting by the door to wash our hands and dry them with a white cotton cloth. Salt is sprinkled on our heads and then we go inside to eat the cakes made from black rice and molasses. In another room, someone has started the rosary; I fall asleep to the heavy drone of voices and wake when someone nudges me to come and eat. On the front stoop the men are playing cards. If the spirit wanted to slip back in this would be the time: whoever has been crying is spent and is being fed sweets, or is drunk from many shots of gin. Rain falls and someone takes up a guitar to sing. The widow joins in and cannot go past the refrain. But even the crickets have taken up their nightly place again under the leaves.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.