The sound of funerals in winter

is the rustle of hands in pocketbooks

searching for handkerchiefs to wipe noses,

dry eyes, hide away old chewing gum.

It is the hush of black and grey wool coats

brought out only for this kind of day,

with pockets full of cough drops

and forgotten parking stubs.

The sound of heels crunching on snow,

breaking through top layers of ice

or struggling through what is newly fallen

without touching what is beneath it all.

 

 

Jennifer Schomburg Kanke’s work has appeared in New Ohio Review, Massachusetts Review, Shenandoah and Salamander. She recently won the Sheila-Na-Gig Editions Editor’s Choice Award for Fiction. Her zine about undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, Fine, Considering, is available from Rinky Dink Press. She serves as a reader for The Dodge.