~ Delta Poetry Review ~

David Mampel

A Time to Remember and Cry

The body is ash now,

his urn waits for me

to pick it up,

but death certificates

haven't arrived

and I'd rather not make

two separate trips

to the funeral home,

or call it a home.

I finished the eulogy

several times,

practiced it

with only a few cries,

hoping to get through it

without handing the microphone

to the minister.

My sisters took mom

for another day of comfort

so I could sit at this cafe,

heavy as a stone sinking

beneath waves.

Friends send sympathy cards,

the choir rehearses,

Sunday is the service,

but today is like Maundy Thursday,

clouds pausing for another downpour.

Enough details checked off

or washed out in the gray.

Enough phone calls

to hear soothing words.

The hot tea is tepid now.

Nothing left to do

when normal days break down,

but walk by the lake

and ache for papa's presence,

weather the storm,

and remember

how he loved to sing

"On the road again"

every morning

when we left the motel

for another three hundred miles

on Route 66.

David Mampel is a caregiver, former minister, semi-retired clown, and artist. He writes fiction and poetry to bring a little sun to the rainy darkness of the Pacific Northwest. His work has appeared in Copperfield Review Quarterly, The Aurora Journal, The Remington Review, and others.