Feet First
He leaves us unexpectedly, as we sat outside his open bedroom door
laughing and reminiscing about the jokes he loved to tell; the stories he made up for sleepy daughters, his laugh that made us laugh too. He bought me an adjoining crypt in Home of Peace so that our unadorned wooden coffins could slip into the wall and lie next to each other
for eternity–––How does he look now? How long does it take a body
to decay? We visit on his yahrzeit. Leaning against the marble wall across from his, I speak to him softly. Tell him I miss his body next to mine, miss the way he looked at me, miss those long Friday night dinners talking and sipping great wine. Tell him all of us are fine.
Tell him I love him, but don’t plan to join him any time soon.
Melanie Maier was born and raised in San Francisco. She earned a BS from the University of California, Berkeley and a JD from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She practiced in San Francisco and Marin County before retiring to write poetry. Melanie’s poetry has been published in reviews including The Fourth River, Phoebe, The Southern California Review, and South Carolina Review. Internationally her work has appeared in Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw, Poland.
