Werthers

By Marissa Medley
How could she know so many people I didnt?
She was just one of the few I knew.
It was a funeral and I was only five.
Strangers faces lined the hard cushioned seats,
they pressed the hard air out of my
young and vulnerable lungs.
My cousin, my sister, myself
gather in a dusty corner,
unaware of the drowning about
to drag me under with a force stronger
than the gravity of a black hole
A man in sorrow-kissed black speaks.
We pray. It is all done.
Mom hands me a Werthers,
the same ones Gramma always gave me.
The promise of smooth caramel
and sweetness.