Phone

His phone was in the jacket

draped over a chair at the funeral.

Nobody'd turned it off.

The default alarm—that bleating thing—

went off while the priest was mid-sentence

about living a full life,

and my uncle's shoulders started shaking.

Not crying. The other thing.

I looked at him and lost it.

Both of us shaking,

the sound of my cousin's phone

calling him to wake up,

to go somewhere,

to be somewhere else.

The jacket vibrated on the chair.

Everyone could see it.

My aunt didn't move.

The priest kept talking.

My uncle grabbed my arm—

not in comfort,

in the way you grab someone

when you're both drowning

in the exact same awful moment.

The phone stopped ringing.

We didn't.