Current Issue: Fall/Winter 2010

After the Funeral  
Kendra Tanacea

We fill the dining room with lemon squares,
rolled dates, braided cookies, all dusted

with confectionary sugar, mounded on bone
china. A tray of apricot brandy is passed

and everyone, even the children, take a swig,
spirits for the unbearable. Sweet bread, holy bread,

we offer our condolences twisted and baked into challah.
We fill hollow watermelon shells with balls of honeydew

and cantaloupe, with a touch of lemon so it doesn’t=t turn.
We compose plates for those who suffer: Here=s a hot cross

bun or roast beef on a plain roll. The food keeps coming
through the door, each friend, each loved one, holding their grief

in a paper bag with handles, on a tray covered
with Saran wrap. No one eats their own dish, 

they know this sorrow. They sample a piece, a sliver,
of what all the others have brought, have laid on the table.

 

Kendra Tanacea is a practicing attorney and holds an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College.  Her writing appears in 5AM, Rattle, Pearl, and elsewhere.  Her manuscript, If You’re Lucky Nobody Gets Hurt, was a finalist for the Starrett Prize.