Angeline Schellenberg

FUNERAL TAPE

I think about Abe as I prepare for winter

He didn’t focus on the other side of us
It may be dark but I want to speak of the future

What Abe would have wanted
God has given

I’d like to leave two verses with you
He made his own ice rink

One is out of Exodus
His time in Evergreen

His first son was
A few words in closing

We’re all frail human vessels
I never received a handshake like Abe would give

God has taken
Abe never crumbled

Down the valley one by one
Those who wait on the Lord will be radiant

If we stand under God’s hand
Something festers inside us

To make peace with our past
He bought me joke books

He was tormented
That guy could sing

A few words in closing
We’re all frail human vessels

Poor guy had to run behind while I sat on the bike
The road is more pleasant than the inn

I’d like to leave two verses with you
We forgot our boy at church and pastor brought him home

His time in Evergreen
He said, You call this an inn?

I could talk about Abe as a brother
He prayed as if he meant it

We are going down the valley one by one
The inn is more pleasant than the road

If you can’t see Abe listen for his whistle
I wish I could pull the curtain aside

It may be dark but I want to speak of the future
His time in Evergreen

I think about Abe as I prepare for winter

Angeline Schellenberg’s first full-length poetry collection about autism is forthcoming with Brick Books in Fall 2016, and her first chapbook Roads of Stone , is forthcoming with The Alfred Gustav Press in May 2015. Angeline’s poetry appears in Prairie Fire, CV2, Room, Rhubarb, The New Quarterly, Geez, the Society, Wordgathering, and the Cradle Song and Beautiful Women anthologies. Her poem “The spectral existence of magenta” won third prize in the 2014 Banff Centre Bliss Carmen Poetry Award. Angeline lives in Winnipeg with her husband, two teenagers, and a corgi-shepherd cross.