Men At My Father’s Funeral

The ones his age who shook my hand

on their way out sent fear along

my arm like heroin. These weren’t

men mute about their feelings,

or what’s a body language for?

And I, the glib one, who’d stood

with my back to my father’s body

and praised the heart that attacked him?

I’d made my stab at elegy,

the flesh made word: the very spit

in my mouth was sour with ruth

and eloquence. What could be worse?

Silence, the anthem of my father’s

new country. And thus this babble,

like a dial tone, from our bodies.