"Days of Cloth"

Thin winter, this year of death-- 
funerals abundant as wild ivy 
clawing up suburban walls. 
A starving need is growing 
like algae in my belly. 
I seek proof from death columns 
in the Classified, like dope 
to dull a nagging sense 
that we were singled out-- 
stoned on knowledge 
that we all go the same way. 
People die. 
I threw up before I left the house. 

Black ink of another eulogy 
bubbles acid in my gut. 
Red wine in a highball at 10 am 
has become my means to settle 
trembling hands and voice. 
Below its scarlet veil, the ache persists. 
Since his suicide, people 
have dropped like Chernobyl flies. 
Processing relatives, life is a high 
speed liquidiser blowing blades of reason. 

Scribbled words on scrap paper 
substitute worry beads. 
Absently, my fingers roll them 
into a cigarette. 
I would give a toe to smoke them. 
Pieces of me want to explode 
with laughter, to drown the quiet 
with a spray of raucous hysteria. 
Silence is a lawnmower trimming sanity. 
Middle-aged women in outdated hats 
greet me. Surely they are not as old 
as they look. 

I seek solace in the gardens 
of remembrance. 
Six months since summer 
pretended to be autumn, since 
soft rain fell out of heaven 
while we interned his ashes. 
More gravel than ash-like discarded 
fragments of shell. 
Like many things, they are different 
than I had imagined. 

In all this unnamed grass 
where do I find him? 
Eight footsteps from the bench 
twelve from the oak. 
With downcast eyes, I watch 
ants move house. 
My mother says she can feel 
the peace, says she senses 
the presence of rest. 
I sense neither. 
I am bitter and cannot disguise it. 
The sky doesn't care, it's blue 
and water sun pisses down 
through translucence. 

Inside the cold tomb of worship 
to a god with whom I argue 
I receive silent nods from faces 
whose names I cannot recall. 
Cloth of invisible blood stains 
shrouds a small coffin. 
Robes a mile long walk the plank 
to alters of incense and small 
bells on ribbon echo into stone. 

I imagine Sunday sermons 
to educate the masses 
'before its too late' emphasised 
with water, a hundred burning candles 
and young boys wearing dresses. 

I wonder if the priest remembers 
when we blasted these leaded lights 
with 'Every Breath You Take' 
while shell-shocked mourners 
poured from church doors 
after the funeral; or how we sang 
'Imagine' and -everybody hurts... 
sometimes- chipped voices 
trailing to a twelve string guitar. 

He signals me to the pulpit. 
I unroll my cigarette eulogy, clear 
the sawdust from my throat: 
'a precious lady left this world 
during the small hours...'. 
Cold sun burns a hole through stained 
glass windows and maybe normal 
is about finding an audience 
just as desperate. 

Give me one and I promise to perform. 

  Copyright © 2002 Candy Gourlay

 About the author:
Candy Gourlay was born in South Africa. Her work has appeared in print and online in publications world-wide, including Beatnik Journal, Extraverse, Platinum Poetry, Poems Niederngasse, Reflections Journal, Slow Trains, Tapestry, The Breath, Thought Fragments, and Wide Thinker. She has also recently been published in the NAWW Writer's Guide (National Association of Woman Writers US), and is a finalist in the Poetry Institute of Africa Annual Awards. Upcoming publication in 2003 includes Feminine Writes Anthology, Golden Thread Anthology, Little Brown Poetry Print Anthology and Online Journal, Side Reality, and Wired Art from Wired Hearts. Her debut work of creative non-fiction, "Story of a Girl" is scheduled for publication late this year, and she is bending spoons to meet this ridiculous deadline.

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