I Didn’t Cry At Her Funeral

The death bed, too alive with resignation, lengthened the affirmations;

language neither of us were in practice for found us, each in different

ways. She’d softened, maybe in reaction to the unreadiness on my face.

I made the decision that she was aware of herself, but maybe not. Regardless,

I offered forgiveness of the admissions she couldn’t manage, realizing

it best to leave it be, to avoid re-entering the rooms I was never welcome in.

Days later, no more or less to be said, the casket closed—dismissing her

of her notions, her adaptations to truth. Edged on the pew leaning forward

I sat looking down at my feet while the preacher, Baptist and full of fire,

praised a woman who’d for years found the simplest ways to confuse

my worth. Lacking hesitance, she had so often taken aim at my frame,

called me thick-thighed, cackled at my ankles—too fat for my calves,

suggested I was unfit for anyone to take home, presumed I wanted to be

owned, when I didn’t and wouldn’t be. An insult to her blues, my brown

eyes found focus on the church floor while I flipped through the years

of my youth, recounting each time she would say that blonde hair sells you

as a whore. Fifteen and a virgin, the thinnest of her grandchildren, faulted

then for who I favored and again for being unwilling to cry at her burial.