Malika comments that she was 'compelled by taunt, controlled verse paragraphs' in runner-up JS Watt's The Undertaker's Daughter.
The Undertaker's Daughter
I did not intend to follow
him down into this chamber,
eight foot by thirty inches,
a life’s constraint,
but the box’s extended hexagon
makes a keyhole
that draws this key towards
all that comes after life.
Years of life and dying
mark the polished surface.
The grain of the wood shows clear.
My father’s child,
I cannot help but admire
the patina. My face
stares back towards me
from the coffin’s darkened lid.
My father was a man
well acquainted with death.
He lived it and it consumed him,
occupied his flesh, its pores,
stained his hair mourning black,
shaded his eyes darker still,
modulated his voice to dim undulations
in case the bereaved were near.
I grew through his shadow,
my eyes absorbing its blackness.
I inhaled the hushed smell of lilies,
the incense of grieving that masks
more primal animal scents.
My voice shrank to a whisper,
the learned softness muffling
the dry creak of frustration.
When he died I tried to crawl
out of his lifetime’s grave,
but death becomes a way of living.
The sound of a nail striking plank
always returns me.
I cannot take a woodland walk
without naming casket types:
oak, pine, elm, willow weave.
Meeting people, I mentally measure
height, breadth and weight,
calculate spiritual designation,
for service requirements only.
Once in the graveyard everyone
prays the same way.
It is only the journey there
that demands narrow hymns and devotionals.
The dead know no divisions.
They do not hate or condemn.
I have come to find them
congenial companions in comparison,
conducive to the muted inertia
I wind myself in,
in keeping with my vocation,
my inheritance.