ozark funeral

By emily kennard

digger’s late to the cemetery half unmarked graves grass roughly mowed the excavator hits stone blows dust on my shoes a jackhammer would cost us no paid preacher no embalming nothing special quiet funeral, only motors her rapist, my uncle’s father, says goodbye she sinks into the ground silently accepting her tormentor’s condolences too tired to protest she takes so many secrets with her buried in a concrete vault, in the cheapest coffin her life savings gone no house, no car. not even glasses on her face i sit and cry with my heirlooms: some of her secrets the dust caked on my shoes and a funeral bill