Balcony

She never sought anyone by phone
or mail or happenstance at a store.
Yet here they come, January thaw,
mud kissing rubbers and overshoes,
picking their way over slipperiness
that's no joke to their bones, the shrinking
congregation, feeling not so much
like a body at ease--a puddle,
say, in a hole--but afloat: a slick
and with precious little coloration.

How long had she been an article
in another section, too little
reason to rustle through the paper!
Now she is one to linger over,
wonder what it was like the last night
counting, waiting for sleep to flicker
down the long track, then without warning
a block signal--only it was blood
flashing, beneath the translucent skin
by her ear, the absoluteness of red.

Never one to listen willingly,
she now waits quietly, what they have
of her, but which of them, faces up
(glasses aglint) and lifting into
the parlor of the funeral home,
which fretful one hovering near her
could speak as the occasion requires?
Besides, the pastor has the collar
to comment.  So they lean--the entire
three-sided balcony of them leans over.

(c)Jay Paul                         1999

from Going Home in Flood Time

The Inkdrop Press, Painter, VA