Deirdre Neilen, PhD: Maggie Bowyer is a poet and author of the poetry collection "Ungodly." Her poem "Funeral Juxtaposition" shows us a young daughter's perspective on her mother's untimely death.
We stand far too close,
Baby hairs on forearms brushing,
Breath-mint clouds
Leaving prickles on our necks.
Everyone leans in,
Feasting on the words
Of a preacher who'd
Never even met her.
The pews weren't as stiff
As my words were
Reciting the Lord's Prayer
In my mother's name.
There was no burial,
As the only wish honored
Was her incineration.
After hugs full of
Too much perfume,
Stiff, freshly pressed suits,
And tears from relatives
Who meant relatively nothing to me,
We went home.
Laid out on the counters
Were ham biscuits
And cold cuts.
The room was filled
With the smell of meat
I refused to eat,
And the chatter of wrinkled lips
"Catching up"
Between bites of
Too sweet brownies.
No one noticed
Me slip off my heels
And out the door.
I couldn't be there,
Where no one seemed to recall
How we just stared at
A seemingly plastic corpse,
My mom's hair completely wrong,
In her least favorite outfit.
And so I sat outside,
In the grass,
Feeling the sting
Of a late December rain.
I bet I ruined that dress,
The black one with
Small purple flowers,
The one I was supposed to
Wear to her wedding.
The rain seemed fitting;
She only liked to leave the beach
On rainy days.
My grandparents sat inside,
Forgetting storms of their own,
While I shared malice
With the clouds above.
I don't know how
You end a poem
About your mother's death
This quick,
Much like I don't know how God
Ends a mother's life
When she was only 36.
