Ceremony

       The lamenting la
       begs elegy from dull routine,
       whimpering space between laughs,
       Discomforting new-normal
                      with rocking lulls.

       A private exequy of heavy sighs
       Long after soured flesh
       has been picked
       from the teeth of friends,
                                of fiends.

       Broken men canopy black-laced sorrow
       over your carcass,
       Broken women prey menacing lullabies
       for a seat touching your shrine,
       or moments of weeping electricity
                           through your landline.

       Window-Saints glare
       unchanging indifference over
       rows of limped faces
       pulled toward marbled hell
                      beneath their feet.

       I imagine the closed-door taste
       of your Eucharist from cupped hands,
       dreaming pew-cluttered,
       God-stained ceremony
                           with no need for a body.

Anna Dore is an English graduate at the University of Central Oklahoma. Through her work, she uses humor and free verse to express grief, loss, and experience. She lives in Oklahoma City.
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