Eboni Dunbar

What does the next life hold? Something better than watching people
enter it
then watching—
Beloved people like women who were
godmothers and men who were uncles who
kissed our cheeks as we walked out
of church and complimented our pretty white
dresses as we twirled in fall cyclones. We did not know
where it was leading. No one explains death
and then in matching pajamas
we wake to find an uncle gone; died in a hospital bed
from a cancer. Better not to teach the young
the process of processing so that when the tears come
they come in force and they can know that they
are real.
So that when we press our little hands against lifeless,
spongy fingers it all becomes too
real. Young tears, not like the wails
of weeping women who regret
never loving and never being
honest. The
process of living
requires too
much.
Black dresses and black patent leather shoes
lowered heads and broken hearts—
Who’s going to walk
me down the aisle now?