So, here's one of the recent poems I've written. I haven't done much of anything with, it's as rough as they get. Please feel free to comment whether it's yay or nay. Think it's worth developing? Thanks, and I hope you enjoy.

Internalizing

So there she is done up fine and fancy
as a suckling pig, the kind people make a fuss about.
Her makeup is perfect, the periwinkle blue gown
I bought at the mall for her yesterday fits
and she's lost the maggoty pallor she wore
when I found her sprawled on the floor four days ago.

The first time we go to see her at that dreaded place
that for years we dared not think about or mention
my brother whispers in my right ear,
don't touch her,
but of course I do out of curiousity
mixed with a pinch of sibling defiance.

Her right arm feels hard as a muscle spasm, and fat
and bumpy like she's been packed with wadded up sheets
of newspaper. She looks so real, yet surreal
as a sleeping beauty waiting for a kiss to wake her up.
I bend and kiss her cheek but all I get is a cold face.

I am relieved. She will pass the inspection of relatives
who will come to ogle her and meet their standards
for looking good, or peaceful, or younger
or whatever else it is people say
about the dead at funerals.

For this I will be told I've done well
and that I should be proud,
but inside I feel like a piece of lead
that dangles by a fraying thread.

I have become a multitasking robot
performing hostessing services by rote
while I heed an inner, repeating voice
that says this is just a nightmare
and that it will go away
just as soon as I wake up.

The service ends just as suddenly as the way
she passed. People leave in a rush to get home
and wash their hands of death
as though it were some kind of contagious germ.

copyright 2005 by Cookala