AFTER THE FUNERAL Poem by Jane Gibian

Everyone gracious and composed; the party
at your ex-girlfriend's parents' place. Us girls
went swimming in our knickers, the air

steamy and languid; we laughed and shouted
with relief and teased the boys who wouldn't undress
and under the splintered verandah you embraced

me hard, as if that desperate passion might
defy death. Jammed in the car with the flowers
heading back in the late afternoon, all of us quiet

with exhaustion; at the wharf the thick green water
silent under the wooden slats. The dense bouquets
filling the little tinny, each of us clutching

bunches; a miniature funeral procession
chugging through the dusk towards
the unfinished house that held no vases.