Bilingual Funeral

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BILINGUAL FUNERAL


The service began in a language we knew, 

followed by—as we knew well enough

to expect—a pause, as the translator 


looked for words for those in the church 

who didn’t understand. At first

they understood, and then the pause


lengthened, and we began to fidget

a bit in secondhand embarrassment. 

And then the pause lengthened, 


and some of us looked around 

to reassure ourselves we weren’t alone 

in our unspoken suspicion 


that the one who claimed to know

didn’t. And then the pause drew 

itself out all the way to the end


of our time. We shuffled out then

in the long silence, to this day waiting

to find out what it meant. 

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