Poetry

The Funeral

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I know better than to wear mascara
to a funeral. I have no shame in
the tears rolling down my cheeks.
My chin remains level, eyes wide.
I brush streaks aside with open palm,
the flat of thumb. I don’t need
the comfort of cloth. I am soured by
the eyes of the saints. They hang from
wood and window trying not to show
us their wounds, yet the blood drips from
crosses over our heads. I am no longer
a child.

“The Funeral” is previously published in To Anyone Who Has Loved a Writer (2014).

Mine

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

you
you are mine

for me

you are the silver
on my fingers

the sweat along
my temples

you are mine

a confidence I don’t
have to share
or confess

a secret
not exactly
hidden
but owned

I have no
lingering value
or clandestine
treasure

there is just
who I am

and you
my gift

“Mine” is previously published in Rabbits for Luck (2016).

Melquiades and Loretta

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

He outlived her by twenty-three years,
yet they remain nestled together in the earth.

I can’t help but wonder if he spent
those years alone, stuck in a daughter’s
kitchen with obnoxious grandchildren
and great-grandchildren weaving around
his knobbed knees and kitchen table.

I wonder if he had other lovers,
later in life, the kind that meet late
at movies or intertwine hands on park
benches, secret affairs he kept from
controlling daughter.

Did he tell Loretta his secrets?
Ask her for forgiveness?
Come to grey marker after Sunday mass
to confess the sins he held in his heart?

Did he talk about her on the last days,
walk an 84-year-old crooked gait,
mistake the silhouette of his daughter
over the kitchen sink as long
departed wife?

Did he call her her mother’s name
without even realizing the mistake
and did he wake to a daughter’s sharp glance
before walking back to the porch to slump
on front bench in final silence?

“Melquiades and Loretta” is previously published in Graveyard Collection (2015).