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Things You Miss
By Khary Jackson
We didn't have enough money to fly us all to the funeral.
Since they'd once let me fly alone, this time I stayed home.
I didn't want to see her like that anyway.
Before they left, I felt stoic, contained, master mimic of Daddy,
so paint me baffled when I found myself, alone, crying for missing
Granny's funeral, my ten year old mind trying to recreate the scene
in our empty living room. But even in fantasy, my eyes were not on her.
The last time we saw her, she was 10% hospital bed
and defeat, the rest of her somewhere else.
This austere knuckle cracker became the warmest woman I've ever seen,
watching thunder voiced Daddy quieting
into her son.
I didn't need the funeral, her face a mortician's masterpiece,
I didn't need a reminder that smaller gods can die.
But how many chances
will a boy ever have
to watch his daddy cry.
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