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 Yin 

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