Catherine's Wake
by John Grey
John Grey

John Grey has been published recently in the Georgetown Review, The Pinch, South Carolina Review, and The Pedestal, with work upcoming in Alimentum and Big Muddy.

She's dead
but look how well they've done her face,

taken ten years off her life.
And she, so still, like she appreciates that.

So what if her shoes are tight.
She won't be walking in them.

And that dress is not even her favorite color.
But could be it's God's.

And this place will do her well enough
until the next place

when mourners lay their flowers down
and dirt replaces tears.

For tiredness is now beneficence.
Worry is relief.

Her hands are folded
like petals prepared to go back to the soil

though now they rest on her body.
I have to ask. Was she the one who folded them?

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