Two Funerals This Week
By Rebecca Clifford
On my way to a third,
I come across a corpse on the road.
Give rest, O Christ
Eyes wide, tongue hanging,
guts sprawled like a purse upended.
to thy servant with thy saints
I lift the dead from the gravel
where sorrow and pain are no more
place her on the verge, apologize for fate
neither sighing
and farm trucks.
but life everlasting
I weep for a cat when I can’t for my mother.
Rebecca Clifford holds a BA in English literature and a certificate in creative writing. She is a member of Tower Poetry Society, The Ontario Poetry Society, and the Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers. Her works appear in Tower Poetry anthologies (2017-23), Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century (Lummox Press, 2018), The Banister (2018), Rat’s Ass Review, and The Niagara Anglican. Rebecca won the Haldimand Annual Poetry Contests in, and had children’s picture book stories nationally longlisted. Rebecca lives in rural Ontario with a long-suffering husband and a disdainful cat of questionable parentage.