10 of 30 Elegy for Second Uncles

My first funeral required a black suit.
a clip-on tie. The saints watched,
blandly pleased, as I genuflected,
knelt, stood and sat.
I did not know the man,
like a rubber plant,
rouged with wax-fruit cheeks.
They drank coffee, and after, whiskey
but they did not weep
stained light,fake grass at the graveside.

My first death was a mouse on a trap
dry and stiff, forgotten under the chair
bloody and grinning, black eyed
in the  dark.

The did not lower you
into the earth, the women wore red
There was no rain.