I wore white to the funeral—
It would’ve made mama proud:
“Obedient Chinese daughter,
Is it true that in my shroud
Where I am looking down upon
Your silent careless weepings,
I’ve been bereft of all I gave?
Be remembrant while I’m sleeping—
Start a household. Marry somebody.
Our recollections intertwine;
What will the girl do now?— The fear
That will be yours but once was mine.”
Earth forbids my mother’s knowing
Glance above unto my heaving
Heart—forbids the circumstantial
Blotch of mundane dirt bereaving
Both my petticoat and mama—
If she knew. She doesn’t. She’s dead.
The crypt sealed on her painted face
And lowered into a dirt bed
While I stood looking, wearing white,
A guilty brush of salt which fell
Not from mourning, but from my cheek
Into heaven or over hell.
The mineral purified her
While its weightless grain persisted
Like a milligram of nothing
Slowly oozing, queerly misted.
It will offer as much relief
As a dead person can feel.
Last night I dreamed a dream of grief:
Hours after the burial,
The thunder and rain were dancing
On her grass grave. A lightning flash
Liquified the dirt crust—fingers
Leapt like a baubling rash
And rose above the angerless
Ground into sleet-corroded sky.
My mother was wearing my dress—
A zombie covered in me, gone.
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