Closed Casket

Closed Casket



You lay in a pine box at the front of the room
with the primary colors of stained glass windows
and Jesus and the Virgin looking down at you.
There are flowers lining the crimson carpet step and
arranged on the altar making friends with the Bible and
the wine and sacrament covered in a cream cloth and
one, single, solitary candle. I find it ironic in a
bittersweet, makes me want to cry, sort of way.

Is it wrong to laugh in church when all the people
around you are crying or right there on the verge?
There’s nothing funny about the candle, but I want
to laugh because they are remembering your life with
a small flicker flame atop a wick melting the wax
in dripping formations the same way it melted your skin.

I have an aftertaste of gasoline and smoke in my mouth
but the only thing I smell is the lilac perfume your mother
is wearing as she sits in front of me sobbing as the
preacher talks about all your accomplishments.
They seem like a lot for someone so young, but then again,
you always liked to make a show of what you did.
I remember the way you smiled when you played
your saxophone and hit all the right notes.
Or the way you cried when you couldn’t seem to find
the right tone of middle C. You were always loud,
even when you whispered. There was no ignoring you.
“Look at me, look at me,” and we looked at you.

So I find the flame bittersweet. It may be mocking us all
when it flickers and we catch a sight of the smoke trail
traveling up between the petals of the flowers towards the
Cathedral ceiling. It’s reminding us, it’s reminding me,
what’s inside that coffin sitting so pristine beside the altar.
It reminds me that inside that fancy box, you lay there
with melted features, like the wax, and black crisp skin
and no hair and no eyes and no resemblance to the bright
loud boy you used to be. Now you’re just dark, so dark
I can’t shed a light on you. You went up in a flame,
by your own god damned hand and I can’t find it in me
to forgive you because of all the shows you’ve ever performed,
of all the “look at me’s” you’ve ever screamed, there’s never
been one I hated more than this. Never one that will stick
with me longer than when you died so loud that the only way we
could stop you from screaming was by giving you a closed casket.

To Andy, 1989 - 2006.