After Chemo Failed by Dawn Manning

                                                        for A.E.M.

There’s nothing obscure about our sorrow—		
no reason to coin new terms for this need
to pace the suddenly bare room wailing,
wadded tissues scattered and left trailing
the wall-to-wall carpet like white bindweeds
sown in the divots left by her narrow
steps. Bow to the stark name cut in granite,
the turf squared out and neatly piled aside,
the warped, satin-lined, wax-work view of her.
We’ll eat canapes and chicken skewers
in the reception hall after we’ve cried
at the time and place named in the obit.
Close the casket—she’s trumped up like a pharaoh;
through tinted glass, trees tremble with sparrows.

Dawn Manning conjures art with words, metal, and other media in the former tollhouse of a covered bridge. She is the author of Postcards from the Dead Letter Office (Burlesque Press). Her poems have appeared in 32 Poems, Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, and other publications.

3 February 2025