In October 1960,
\nA gas explosion tore off the back wall
\nOf the Metropolitan department store in downtown Windsor.
\nNine seniors sitting on chrome stools at the lunch counter
\nWere crushed under the rubble,
\nAlong with one young girl, who bled out
\nIn the arms of two firemen who couldn’t pry her free.
\nOne five year-old boy was small enough
\nThat the blast threw him free and clear.<\/p>\n
My great-grandmother ran the flower shop
\nOn that street, and over the next days
\nMy mother, fourteen, worked with her through the nights
\nMaking the funeral bouquets.<\/p>\n
The current explosion, also accidental,
\nis slow, almost invisible.
\nThe elderly vanish. The shops remain intact.
\nNo one is allowed inside them,
\nBut the shopkeepers are still working
\nThrough the night, or whatever we call time
\nIn the enclosed and sleeping city.<\/p>\n
The flower shop at the end of my street is closed,
\nBut the keeper curates her shrinking deliveries
\nAs people call in for wreaths, centrepieces.
\nWe can still do funerals, though no one can attend.<\/p>\n
Two blocks down, my barber visits his quiet shop
\nTo sit in his own chair
\nAnd listen for the echo of banter and trash talk.
\nTo watch the sunlight pass through the barbicide
\nAnd the shears glint gently on the flannel.
\nBeards are growing in homes,
\nLike the community gardens, locked up and tangling.<\/p>\n
An arthritic priest fumbles with his iPhone
\nOn a tripod, on the altar, trying to frame
\nHis face, the book, the chalice, stained glass behind him.
\nA parishioner Amazoned him a selfie ring-light
\nAnd it glows like a hollow monstrance.
\nHe’s joining an ancient line of hermits
\nPerforming rites for laypeople, remotely.<\/p>\n
There have always been funerals that no one attends
\nExcept those who are working on them.
\nPoverty, trauma, and alcoholism socially distance.
\nOnce a month when I was a church organist,
\nI’d play at the service of some war vet
\nWho’d died on the street.
\nThe Legion paid me, the priest, a bagpiper,
\nAnd five bucks for the altar boy
\nTo carry the candle and fold the flag.
\nI sat up in the loft and listened to the gospel,
\nStared out the clerestory,
\nShivered when the pipes droned and cried Going Home.
\nThree men, a coffin, and a boy,
\nStanding more than six feet apart,
\nSaying nothing to each other apart from the ritual,
\nWatched by no one, careful to get it right.
\nExcept for the boy: young, easily distractible,
\nNot quite part of this slow disaster.<\/p>\n
-mr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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