“I’m Never Told of Family Funerals” by Greg Rappleye (poetry, ’00)

An excerpt from “I’m Never Told of Family Funerals” by Greg Rappleye (poetry, ’00), published at American Magazine:

I’m Never Told of Family Funerals

Not since the wake when I was 9,
when I stole a cushion from Benny’s couch
and propped Aunt Rose high in her casket,
sliding a Pall Mall between her fingers
and a bourbon tight in her grasp,
all nestled among the amber decades of a cut-glass
rosary they’d looped through her veiny hands,
a relic she’d carried home from Lourdes
the summer after the Salk vaccine,
when the greater aunts said Surely now, the Blessed Virgin
would cure Aunt Rose of polio. No matter.
In the afterlife, I knew Aunt Rose would toss
away her brace, her crutches, and two-step
among the American Beauties; that not even Jesus
could begrudge her a celebratory smoke
and sip of whiskey, once he’d seen her dance.  […continue reading here]