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.