We are halfway through the funeral service
of the Palagi wife of his old friend.
I didn’t want to come because
I don’t want to cry in front of my mother.
Before we left the house I mumbled something
about not wanting to go. About how it comes and goes. Waves.
I remember her saying something similar years ago
about her own father, before I could know this grief.
It is not until the hymn that he rises
up beside me
in his dark-blue suit jacket
with his freezing-worker shoulders
square as Gary Cooper’s.
My head reaches the top of his shoulder.
He is singing bass.
There are a few spots of dandruff on his shoulder.
I stand beside him
and he rises and rises.