Betty Stanton

After the Funeral

The grandfather clock keeps time for no one,

its hands moving, turning out of devotion,

soft ticking like veins remembering what blood
used to mean when it flowed. Hours rings hollow,
spilling through rooms that smell of mint liniment,
talcum powder, lemon soap. The house exhales,
air trembles, photographs blur at the edges, paper
cannot hold the weight of her gaze. Someone has
turned the frames askew. We leave them crooked.
In the shape of her absence, the house has begun
to remember loss. In the hallway, light pools in
quiet question, slow gleam across the floorboards
where her slippers used to whisper. The walls lean,

listening for the creak of her breath. Their paint
cracks like dry skin. The curtains breathe, rising,

falling like drifts pollen, like ash, like soft snow

that never reaches ground. Her voice still lives in air,
in shadow, in the answering machine message.

We don’t dare to erase it. Each time it plays
the tape unspools another heartbeat, a pause
before the tone, her quick laugh. In the kitchen
the oven light she left on still glows, a single eye
watching the dark. The linoleum curls in, a tongue
learning silence. The clock ticks on, tender,
merciless. Every second an inheritance, a prayer.

Betty Stanton (she/her) is a Pushcart-nominated writer who lives and works in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals and collections and has been included in various anthologies. She is currently on the editorial board of Ivo Review. @fadingbetty.bsky.social