To Terry. The rain is falling for you.

Christian funerals

are odd.

her skin is chalky and overpowdered; her hands posed around a clunky Bible.

we crowd the building like a plague, a plague of black lace and pearls.

and when her wedding picture flashes up, a collective sob escapes

and our salty tissues fast disintegrate.

but Christian funerals

are odd.

because the dirge was "How Great is our God."

and the widower lifts his weary head

for he doesn't think that she is really dead.

how odd.

those yellow roses put in stark relief

the superfluity of Christian grief.