in air quotes “funeral” because Annie coined it a picnic:
troughs of tin foil and the weight of
disbelief under a pavilion on loan, a small welt bloomed
on my mandible – a strawberry moon –
I didn’t get up to speak because I was a young girl-poet
in cupped-cheek retreat, besides,
Bill Lauf had already sung Sleep Friend, Sleep to sundry
water-logged faces, a final pinch
from distant kin, a slow-release gift to return to the body
between summer storms, howbeit
cruel and vertiginous. Reminder: fleeing leaves footprints.

---

Erin Latham Shea is a chronically ill and disabled writer, grad student, and Pushcart-nominated poet residing in Connecticut. Her work has appeared in the Vocal+ Fiction Awards Anthology, Ink and Marrow, The Mersey Review, and ARTWIFE Magazine, among others. She also serves as an Assistant Poetry Editor at Wishbone Words. You can find her on Instagram @somebookishrambles