» Poetry

Elegy Ending with a Slice of Sour-Cream-and-Raisin Pie

Joe Wilkins

 

A boy wants to break
the world in half and put it
in his pocket. All through the eulogy

 

I thumbed a cracked mussel shell
pulled the day before from the shallows
beneath the bridge,

 

the shell’s interior curves so perfect
and slick I could almost feel
the mother-of-pearl—

 

lavender and rose, cream
at the thin, crumbling edge. My collar
itched. I didn’t like the golden

 

corduroys I had to wear,
hand-me-downs from an older
cousin, and still my only pants without

 

mended knees or a patched ass.
The priest needed the cup,
so I held it up. I didn’t know the man

 

who died. He was my grandfather’s age,
which worried me, but not enough
to slow me down

 

(wasn’t my first funeral, wouldn’t
be my last). I shucked
my starched vestments faster

 

than all the other altar boys,
and so was first in line
for a chipped-beef sandwich and pie.

Share

Joe Wilkins

Joe Wilkins is the author of the novels The Entire Sky and Fall Back Down When I Die, both of which have garnered wide critical acclaim. He is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers, and four collections of poetry, including Thieve and When We Were Birds, winner of the Oregon Book Award. Born and raised on a sheep and hay ranch north of the Bull Mountains of eastern Montana, Wilkins lives with his family in the foothills of the Coast Range of Oregon, where he directs the creative writing program at Linfield University. His latest collection of poems, Pastoral, 1994, is forthcoming from River River Books in January 2025.