Funeral Procession

Baby's breath and carnations, the distant smell of chocolate.

There is a spring storm brewing in the air and I can taste the lightning.

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I caught a glimpse of myself in the looking glass of tomorrow the other day.

Black suit, black tie. Red bouttoniere, jaw set. The look of a cologne ad.

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The sands of time poured over my shoulders and slid over useless hands,

Sticking in cufflinks that hold the initials of a corpse and its dead lineage.

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To all the pretty people in the funeral gallery, I am just a ghost.

One of those harmless ethereal ones without the chains and fury.

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My fury died when I could no longer smell the bleach over the flowers.

It went out in a fizzling hiss when I could not remember her laugh.

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I can't remember her laugh and the pictures in my mind rot.

They crumble around the edges and all I've kept is the smell of her.

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The smell of a hungry corpse looming large in the peripheral,

An anglerfish of a creature drawing me in with the smell of that bouquet.

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It works with alarming ease because every winter hunts for spring

And every summer yearns for the cool touch of autumn in her green hair.

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By pity, the birds fly North because I have become a beacon of anguish.

I am flocking to the Arctic to beg the Aurora Borealis to swallow me whole.