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His Ambulations

By Thomas P. Lynch b. 1948

On shanks’ mare Argyle talked to himself.

Alone, he’d carry on whole colloquies

en route to some poor corpse’s obsequies—

these dialogues, the way he kept his wits

about him, body and soul together,

fit for the wretched work of sin-eating.

Sometimes he counted words or parts of words

as if they amounted to something more

than sound and sense attuned between his ears,

as, for example, how coincident:

the way grace and gratis, wherefore gratitude

partook a kinship such as cousins do,

singing the same tune in different voices,

much as grave and gravitas, then gravity

kept one earthbound, grounded, humble as the mud—

the humus, so-called, God wrought humans from.

Or how from Adam’s rib was fashioned Eve—

bone of his own bone, flesh of his flesh—

whom he got gravid by implanting seed,

in her unfathomably fecund Eden.

The memory of a woman’s company

would bring his ambulations to a halt

to aim his gaping face due heavenward,

the dewy air her touch, her taste, sweet salt.

NOTES: Sin-eaters were common functionaries at eighteenth- and nineteenth-century funerals in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. They would take unto themselves the sins of the dead by consuming bread and beer over the corpse. In addition to the feed, they charged a fee for this ritual scapegoating. Like undertakers, they were needed but not much appreciated, and not infrequently reviled because of their proximity to the dead and their miserable stipend. Their place in the ceremonial landscape of death put them at times at odds with the reverend clergy. —TL

Source: Poetry (February 2011).

Biography

Essayist, poet, and funeral director Thomas Lynch has written four critically acclaimed volumes of poetry, three award-winning volumes of essays, and a book of short fiction. By using his own daily routine as poetic fodder, Lynch has transformed the mundane task of preparing the dead into a life-affirming event. His lyrical, elegaic poems describe the dead citizens of Milford, Michigan, his own family relationships, and scenes . . .

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