Poetry by Donna Reis

Don Harder


​
Wake

Astonished to see my father laid out
in a suit, I turn to my stepmother,
who says, He was a husband and a man

before he was a priest, so he should
be ordinarily dressed. But he didn't
want that. He wanted to be buried

in his ivory, Gothic Chasuble with
the blue velvet cross and oval sapphire
sewn in its center. His love for the church

was the only thing that sustained him
through her trampling. This was his last
chance to be anything other than ordinary.

Already decomposing, his face morphed
into the washed-out man he'd become.
Nothing like the Irish wakes of my mother's

family where everyone clucks,
Doesn't he look grand?!
...Never looked better.




God's Shepherd

My father lived his last months
between waves of cancerous pain
where all he could do was rest
his head on the kitchen table
and pray. Yet, he relished God's graces
to the end, telling how the bishop
of Long Island visited him
in the hospital, saying he needed
to get better, because he was one
of God's shepherds--those words
regaled and broke his heart,
knowing he was already
one of many sheep
crossing the plank
of a ship about to leave.




My Father Passed into the Afterlife Feet First

a breach of promise, a dying he couldn't wrap
his head around. Preparations eluded him,
too late for DNRs, wills living or dead.

I waited to see his spirit rise, but it was long gone--
no point opening a window, he no longer hears
the didactic furies who plagued him on earth.

His life, a litany of injustices, propelled him past Purgatory,
where his Seminarian brothers met him, singing psalms,
Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison--

while my stepmother wags a finger
over his corpse, boasting her grand efforts
to bring him home. Yet when he had a day's

respite at their apartment, she screeched
I hope you die in your shit! Want to see
where you're goin'? Do Ya? We'll drive there now--

as their son kicked his chair and yelled,
Get up and walk, you fuckin" stubborn, old Pollock,
while the visiting nurse dialed 911,

my father's body released his soul,
his blood pressure bottoming out.
Christi Eleison, Christi Eleison,
Christ have mercy upon us all.

​

Bio: Donna Reis’s debut poetry collection, No Passing Zone, published by Deerbrook Editions (December, 2012) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is co-editor and contributor to the anthology, Blues for Bill: A Tribute to William Matthews (Akron Poetry Series, 2005). Her non-fiction book, Seeking Ghosts in the Warwick Valley, published by Schiffer Publishing, Ltd (2003) has sold nearly 3000 copies. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks: Certain (Finishing Line Press, 2012); Dog Shows and Church: A Sequence of Poems (2000) and Incantations (1995) both published by Eurydice Press. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Same, and Zone 3, Blood Lines: Tales of Mayhem and Murder (Knopf, 2011); Chance of a Ghost, Helicon Nine Editions (2005) and Beyond Lament: Poets of the World Bearing Witness to the Holocaust, Northwestern University Press (1998). Reis received her Master of Arts Degree in Creative Writing at The City College, City University of New York, in 2002.

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