At the funeral of the father of my childhood friend
we watched the priest wave the thurible around the casket,
the incense purifying his hundred and one year old soul.
The smoke drifted up into the light coming through stained glass
high on the wall of the church, the colors separating
into components, coming apart, the way his friends did
in the war, sometimes. The way the prism I had on my windowsill
as a boy did to the sun’s rays, back when we were all still whole.
