‘Even at your funeral’ by Madeline Clark

Even at your funeral,

we can’t help
but wait for you
to arrive, bursting
through church doors:

thick heat, fried
chicken, stale
cigarettes, your
sideways smile,

something loving
in your eyes.
Maybe you 
didn’t know

we need you
to breathe 
better. How 
could you

leave us
so desperate
to see you 
dancing

until noon,
only show 
up in dreams
sometimes?   

          

Madeline Clark is a writer based in Portland, OR. She received her B.A. in Creative Writing from Bates College. Her work appears in The Columbia Review. She co-runs a poetry substack, “Good Grief,” and, in 2022, co-launched a weekly poetry workshop for incarcerated women at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility through the non-profit Poetic Justice.