Dressing for sleep

This morning, I read poem by a poet

about the passing of her mother

and the washing of her body.

When my parents died the funeral home

came and got them to prepare for burial

It was all prepaid – just like in the ads on TV.

The caskets and grave site already chosen.

We did not bathe and clean them;

the nurses asked us to leave so they could do that.

We cut ourselves off from life that way

At the funeral, I looked into their caskets,

but not for very long.

Morticians do the best they can

to make them look alive,

but let’s be honest, they don’t do a good job.

They stretch out all their wrinkles

and make them look plastic.

I saw them asleep many times

in their living room chairs

those bodies in the coffins were not my parents.

At the grave site funeral service for my father

a young soldier in the honor guard

passed out and fell on Dad’s casket

as it hung over the grave and he hit his head.

I thought I heard my father chuckle.

And heard him say “Dumb Ass,

didn’t they teach you not to lock your legs

when standing at attention?”

Most of those who knew my father

heard him chuckle, too.

When we drove back to South Carolina

my parents did not call to check on our progress

tell me to stop if I was tired

and to call when we got home.

They never call anymore and neither do I.

1-5-20