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the morning of my mother’s funeral her cup is sober-minded
two plumbers install a shower
my mother will never use
they eat her peanut rockies
in the coronation tin
they pour tea
from her noritake pot
and read her cup
this morning the leaves present
a coffin and men at work
a spade as steady as grave digging
the earth a circle within a cross
my cousin the cardinal
walks my mother
through psalm 23
so she’ll not want
everything takes too long
for the undertaker
the mass this poem
the cup of tea
outside 76a I make him
stop the hearse so the plumbers
at the gate can lower
their cloth caps to my mother
two grave diggers well away
from the artificial grass
share a smoke with the reverence
of strangers and with the same
courtesy wait for the tea
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