Ah-gong’s Funeral

I was a forty-one-year-old rabbit

that year, which was said to be unlucky

for the rabbits to go face-to-face

with death. The monks prepared some

dried grass for me to keep bad luck away.

During the part where everyone went

to a back room to kneel and cry

in front of the coffin, I was asked

to go outside to avoid looking death

in the eye. But I heard the crying.

It was loud and sounded almost wild.

That was how the hired mourners

cried for you and with you in case

the dead’s own family couldn’t

find tears in them to say goodbye.

Or maybe it was so nobody could

hear you cry. But I heard it either way.

I heard the wild cries of the snakes,

rats, pigs, sheep, dragons and others.

For once, everyone was in harmony.