Requiem
The day of the funeral is bright       picturesque, cool.
At the wake, you cling       to your cousins and they
to you, mutual anchors       in a shifting sea of black,
peer unblinking       at the coffined figure       as you had
in earlier days, when the casket was a bed and the corpse
a man. You shrug       out of each embrace, silently scorn
the field of reddened eyes       and wobbly lipsticked mouths.
Later, you and your cousins giggle       at the mourners’
theatrical wails, delight       in the ice cream and boutique
skirts your parents       have gifted you in grief.
Later, your bare schoolgirl knees       collapse       onto unrelenting
ground, a travesty       of the Buddhist genuflection
to the dead       and you close your eyes,
pretend       this isn’t your asking       for an absolution
you have no right to seek.
Author: Emily YinÂ
Emily Yin is a junior studying computer science at Princeton University. Her writing has been recognized by the UK Poetry Society and the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. She currently serves as a poetry editor at Nassau Literary Review. Her work is published in or forthcoming from the Indiana Review Online, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Pithead Chapel, and Connotation Press, among others.
Photographer: Thomas ostachoff