The Hamlet Project

Gertrude bought a new pair of shoes to mourn in
The ones she had just didn’t go with the fabric of her widow’s dress.
The stories of grief and clothing are many
Wherein all the pain and shock and loss
Funnel themselves into the wrongness of the jacket
The offensiveness of the skirt
The threadbareness of the sweater.
Gertrude’s shoes might be those kind of new shoes
Or they might be a frivolity in a dark moment.
I’ve seen widows follow a corpse,
Heard one through the glass of the window upstairs.
A woman I knew to be wry and quick with a joke,
Understated,
Subtle,
Was shrouded in black and wailing.
Her sisters-in-law joined her in the sound but
It was clearly the aria of one woman, with a chorus.
We all walked silently
Followed the hearse from house
To church
Followed the widow
Following the body.
When the body moved from one house
To the next,
The wailing began again –
Every jostling
Every step closer to the grave
Would shake loose the cries
Would shake loose the tears.
I do not know if she had new shoes.