Antonia Clark

On the Aerial Lift
After My Funeral

         In memoriam
       Barbara Jo Clark
          1952 - 1996

Daughter, you never asked
where or why I'd gone,
seemed to know all along
I'd keep my promises.

I'm always here and there—
no particular place like heaven
or underworld, or other side.
I'm the here and now.

I was someone's idea
to bring you to the mountain
and I was October's fire
climbing the hillsides.

I was the lift operator
who latched the safety bar
and said, enjoy the ride
and the voice in your head
that said, sit still, hold on.

I was the wind on your face.
You closed your eyes
the better to feel it,
I was the prick of tears
behind your lids,

the creak of chains,
the tug of the pulley,
the gliding hawk
that made you want to fly.

About the Dead

What children understand
about the dead is how they cling
to life, how they assert
their needs and preferences,
instead of giving up the ghost.
Children, alert to stirrings
of the air, to whispers, hushed
voices in the kitchen, strain
to hear their soft footfalls.
The dead cannot be rushed
into the afterlife. They linger
near their loved ones, listening
and leaving clues--a bar
of yellow light across the floor,
scents of earth and river,
muddy shoes, missing change,
the creaking of a door.
They wait for signs, longing
for us to mention their names,
insatiable for our attention.

Home Permanent

My mother was the one who wanted curls
on me, so I was made to sit, straight-backed
and still, on catalogs stacked on a chair.
She wound my hair relentlessly around
the plastic rods we’d sorted out by size,
pulled so tight tears stung my eyes. The thin
pink lotion burned my scalp, dripped in my ears.
Complaining only makes it worse, she said.
She’d learned that lesson well enough, herself.
She said to hold my head up, not to squirm
or whine. She said she’d prayed that I’d be born
with natural curl, but I was cursed with hair
like hers. All of our lives, we’d have to take
pains, and suffer, suffer for beauty’s sake.