A death in the family

And why should it be easier to talk to you,
now that you are dead?
You left a husk, not some empty chrysalid.

I do not believe you winged and lovely
eating cream cheese sandwiches in heaven
smiling down.

I do not believe that you will wait for us there.
After all, life recently had been
a series of shruggings off.

I wear your coat but you left
no note in the pocket of it
no clue stitched into these seams. I’ve checked.

And you were not one of life’s great talkers
At least not by the time I’d arrived.
Perhaps you had had enough of it by then

All those empty bird-mouths clutching at your hems
those crippled ankles all that remained
of your dancing.

By the time I was old enough to want to ask
I knew there were questions
you did not want to answer.

So my history shows darns in other peoples’ voices
Heresay and heresy
wellmeaning lies.

And if I compared these to my cousins’
to my mother’s, even
They would not fit neat into a patchwork blanket

They would remain shreds of fabric
scattered across a stage; gilt edgeing
bloodied wadding from a point shoe; debris.

The places where I might have searched for truth
-- knots in the back of an embroidered panel
spelling out secret names – are gone

Your furniture labelled, politely squabbled over
and dispersed
among your diaspora of children.

And you decided on cremation.
You did not want, I think,
to be pinned under a piece of stone.

We might have followed you there
one by one, clamorous under the earth
with our tears and wantings.

So I do not know why it is that I talk to you now,
when I catch glimpses of you
in the bones of my own wrist.

Why I am still writing lists
of discrepancies and omissions.
I know it is not you that answers me.

I know it is only an echo
of pebbles thrown into the gap you have left.
But still. I cannot quite accept
that, being dead, you have nothing left to say.