Notes on a Catholic Funeral

By Bart Comegys

There is a background hum

to this Kodak moment,

the push-pull we all feel

at the gate of a Maryland cemetery.

Close on a coffee mug—

    World’s Best Dad,

    it might have read—

we interred in a low stone wall

to fade out with the seasons.

Wide on my first cathedral,

my eyes cut face to face,

whole mass of strangers

I never knew I had.

Grip the pew to keep from floating

up to where they say Dick—

    that’s what they called him—

is now, up with Jesus Allah Buddha,

seventy virgins and every cat he ever owned.

They would splice me into holiness,

drag me out to this great exposure,

open up my skeptic’s mouth to

twenty-five disgusting millimeters of God’s love,

a tiny aperture to absolution.

The shutter snaps,

the man in black behind the tripod

says we can go,

new celluloid solemnity

for our mantelpieces.