After the Funeral

f i ? T ? ? ? AFTER THE FUNERAL ?> ??? ?> J Two days after your funeral J your brother said it was time X for the relatives to take what they wanted— ?> ? T Y Y T Y ? Y ? ? T ?»> ?> J your dresses, your dishes, old pictures and books— j 2 then close the house Y $ and sell what was left. ? X t ^ The living room looks the same as you left it— *?* J like a clock stopped at dusk— *?* 1 the yellowed newspaper spread open on the couch, *t 1 a letter to be mailed, on the table, Y X teacup with dried leaves. ? ^ Even the dust seems caught in prisms Y ?f angling through scanty sheers V X above the sun-bleached pillows. Y ?I* ? ? X^ I thought I saw you raise t Jk from the pillow as I walked in. $ Y Y f*f I track you through a cabinet of antiques, X #?f depression glass and china heirlooms, i Jj^ through stacks ofpatchwork quilts i¿>f in upstairsclosets, X J^ pull out drawers of musty linen f?f J^ and turn pages of a worn album. j, f\ You might be holed up somewhere #*f f?# in these rooms waiting J> JL for the auctioneer JL '¡¦J' ^r«k to start the bidding. f*f V V #*f — Shirley R. Chafin f\ ? f Y t T Y ??* Shirley R. Chafin lives in Paintsville, Kentucky. ? Y Y Y Y Y Y 23 ^. ^l These are my hills...I bought and paid for them with work...not of the plow and pick...but by painstaking observation. . .the work of the pencil and the brush. . .1 was not born among them. . . yet they are mine. . .for what I have seen I have made anew, part of myself. . .part as preservation of what shall pass. . . (from an untitled free verse poem by John A. Spelman) 24 ...