Stephen Scott Whitaker

 

Lean Marsh Funeral

 

Eyuk, uk, ut, ut. Lap the waves, lap tidal feet.
Eul, uk, ut. Ah ut. Ut. Eyuk.

 Singing is a girdle that holds that loose night close.
Oo, ah, mourning sway loaded on tears. Ah, oh

Town wind, field stone, elk brake,
I, the wild heartshaped grass.

Other whispers: Must have, must have, must have, must.
Keeping score, is this what awaits us?

Eyuk, uk, ut, ut. Lap the waves, lap tidal feet.
Eul, uk, ut. Ah ut. Ut. Eyuk.

After the service, we gathered by the gut,
the yard clear for the first time in years

of block engines, and frames, a study in rust
by the creek which flowed into the bay.

All seas must recede when the moon calls it back.
In the end, laughter outlasted, outwitted

and carried long into the night, a younger sister
always having just a little bit more fun than you.

Mah, ha, mah ha, oway, owa, oh.
Follow, follow, follow. The sound of the tide is follow.

Love, a candle in a hurricane kit, a promise
of light in dark storms.

 

 


Stephen Scott Whitaker (@SScottWhitaker) is a member of National Book Critics Circle and the managing editor for The Broadkill Review. His poems have appeared in Oxford Poetry, Grub Street, and Anderbo, among other journals. He is the author of four chapbooks of poetry and a broadside from Broadsided Press. Mulch, his novel of weird fiction is forthcoming from Montag Press in 2019.


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