the only two coffins i’ve ever seen

tiny white closed casket
pale and spiraled like marble
and pink flowers
in big bursting heartbeats of bouquets
curled up beneath
god’s outstretched, waiting arms

now there’s a big brown coffin
classic wood
in a classic wooden fashion-
open casket like open window
and her hair is thin like curtains
faint wisps curling
around her eerily still face
not pursed around a smile,
like it so often was,
but still now
still in the coffin

and they lifted the tiny white coffin
like it was nothing
only needed two to do it-
(like they needed two to bring her into the world
and none to take her out of it)
and her eyes from the monitors
in the few and far-between photos
trailed after the procession
in her infant-eyed, wide-eyed nonchalance and innocence-
when you’re young like that
birth and death lean close
and life is the space between those breaths-
so close, so short

classic casket needs six pallbearers
great-grandmother’s thin, age-atrophied body
barely weighs her wood-heavy coffin down-
and from the old photos
she averts her eyes
staring instead into mine
when you’re old like that
birth and death are pricks of light in the horizons
and life exists in the uneven road between

and the road lets her know me.
emerge from the moon -
most babies are born at night -
and drive into the sun
disappear into hallow light,
most die between the wee hours
when the sun is still young in the sky
and just opening her eyes,
and funerals are held in the blunt glory of day
for all to see
for all to see

and the white coffin goes through the doors,
and the procession of eyes follow without rising
an empty coffin gesture,
to the already buried

and december nips the fingers
that drag against the classic wood
in a classic catholic fashion
mumbling farewells underneath the prayer
that follows her under
six feet away, yet it still doesn’t feel like the end
muttering ‘see you later,’
because goodbye is a chafing casket
and i’m not brave enough for it yet