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.