Coming Down From the Mountain

The dead inform

the behaviour of the living

even when they go early.

I don my blue wedding suit

and finest manners

for the funeral

of Jordan’s younger brother,

offering the cabbie

too generous a tip.

He refuses it, saying

keep your money, kid,

even if people

are dying too soon.

I make it through mass

and the interment

on the mountain

only by emulating

the composure

of the bereaved.

The rain holds off

and I am home

before the crack of thunder

and the deluge,

but there’s electricity

humming in the air

and I must lie down.

With quiet pride

you appear in the bedroom

not long after me

and we stretch out

to nap half-dressed.

I am shaken,

and you know it

when a burst of thunder

makes me wince.

We are all going to die

but you wish to show me

not just yet,

offering escape

not from mortality

but its imminence.

You reach out

and hold me to you,

whispering words of comfort

and combing my hair

with your fingers.

I do not stir,

content to be held,

at peace with death

so long as I rest

in your arms.

— Quinn McIlhone