pushing the boundaries

standing in line

at the funeral home

back home

 

waiting for someone

to pay respects

to the dearly departed

 

i heard the dead young woman

gloat

a little

 

pleased with

the rows and rows of flowers

and afghans and angel figurines

 

and the line of mourners

 

and the way

her b***s looked

in the shirt she wore

 

she thought

{and i'm not paraphrasing much}

 

that she 'looked pretty good

for a dead girl'

 

you may think

that i'm making the whole thing up

 

but i'm only telling the story

as i know it

 

 

Reviews

[caesarkreshen]

I feel like the meat of this poem is in the first bit. It could become an epic short with just a bit of of editing.

Standing in line at the funeral home works. Back home is weird simply because it's another home. Does it matter?

Waiting for someone works. To pay respects to the dearly departed maybe sounds un-poetic in that it's kind of two cliches. Not that cliches are altogether bad because I often use them, but I think for this poem, if it was ME, I would focus on the scene a bit more seriously and end with "I heard the dead young woman gloat a little." Which, because it is such a great line, immediately invalidates everything after it as trying to describe, and makes you want a more (not necessarily longer) fleshed out beginning.

Just my point of view.

[Shauna Jacqueline Ander..]

I love the ending and the selfishness of the character depite her being dead. Very good piece.

[...]

This was awesome :)

[Stacey Watts]

I like this. People are people and just because they die I wonder if they really see themselves this way as they linger after their departure. I like that you express how not everyone will be cut out for the wings.

[Audrey Owens]

Wow! A combination of Sylvia Plath and Frida Kahlo if I ever saw one. I love how this takes death, the ending of all, and turns it into yet another stage to shine on. Some people want to be remembered for how they go out, and the poem captures every moment of those thoughts, even if they are a little creepy and weird.

[linear]

A macabre tale, or is it? childhood memories, twisted by time..........of death, of a life not fufilled nor satisfied.........hungry for that which we seek but cannot know and they keep it hidden no matter how often you ask, push those breasts out .....it's the best you can do, hitch that skirt it's what you have been taught to do........No doubt im completely wrong, but I did enjoy the trip...Thanks Emily :O)

[michael.c.m]

it seems funerals have the effect of tossing us off our path, disrupting the norm. 'Been to far too many lately. Always find those that are reverent, those not so, those downright odd in how they handle death. "not paraphrasing much"... I like that line. Fits well into the scheme you have portrayed here. The last stanza carries the most weight for me. Being as opposed to the deceased who are, irrespective of our memories of them, now the non-being. And the issue of the age. When some die and the vastness of an unexplored life lay before them like open fields, I am sad that they have left. I morn them.

I am certain her b***s looked just fine...... Good piece Ms. Em.

[lark]

The only confusion I have here is it sort of sounds like a mourner is saying this stuff although I would assume it is the ghost/speaker imagining what the deceased would say... I like it though.

[Clockwork]

That is quite a profound revelation and I am a bit stunned actually that someone could say those things at a funeral. I am not sure what I would have done in the same situation. I give you a great deal of credit for remembering the happening and writing this poem for us to contemplate.

These lines were truly stunning "that she 'looked pretty good/ for a dead girl"

[light and ashes]

Wow, what things to say at a funeral. I might would have slapped her. I would have def let her have it if she was someone that I loved. I love the conclusion, "I used to think that we left this world and stepped into angel wings but now I know that we cannot be what we haven't been," so true. We will all graduate this life to what we were more of in this life. This is a beautiful poem with a very true and important point.

[Phibby Venable]

excellent Emily! so few words to draw such a broad view. perfect ending.