Thanksgiving (Poem)

THANKSGIVING

Every Thanksgiving,

My family gets smaller.

Gone to college. Gone traveling. Gone to Florida. Gone to see the Lord.

Funerals are how

I visit the Lord. God is drawn to eulogies.

He’s a cliche,

like a great aunt in black veil

weeping into a floral

handkerchief.


Today, at this funeral,

a thin layer of ice

freezes the ground.

My black dress shoes

crunch ridged footprints into the

top layer of snow.


Every funeral is always cold. I shiver in my dress

shirt and peacoat;

Hands in pockets, I hunch forward,

watching my breath hit the winter wind – an evaporated sadness,

like God.


Thanksgiving. The gravy boat

on the counter

lets off hot, thin steam. While pouring it thick

on my potatoes,

a shadow dances in the dark corner of the dining room.


The days after a funeral are

filled with a confused, hopeful mysticism. Every moving shadow,

every unexplained noise

is a visitation.


I jerk my to head the corner of the room. Nothing.

Glancing back at the table,

I look at his empty seat, reminded

that I shared his name.

I have the same smile; slim, stretching,

no exposed teeth.


I drink like he drank when he was

my age,

days, nights at a time,

stumbling home from dark pubs,

watching, with blurred vision,

my whisky breath hit the winter wind,

and evaporate, almost as fast as God.


After the turkey and the pie and the coffee,

I go down to the basement, alone.

A broken ceiling lamp sputters light.

I hear footsteps tapping upstairs.

I pour myself a stiff

rum and coke.


And I remember.