Pink and green

by Ruma Chakravarti

There, I have said it now!
Pink and green will be the colours
At my funeral, it will be pretty if nothing else.
I stare, open mouthed in horror
After all we were planning a prom dress
And to move this fast, from prom to death
Bypassing all the other fun bits in between?
Weakly I begin, why do you have to say things like that?
But nothing comes out the way it sounds in my head.
So I end up sounding a cross between stern (my mother)
Perhaps you will want a bit of colour in the dress by then!
After all death does make one look washed out.
Think of the zombies in the film last night.
And she looks at me, suddenly all practical and uptight
And she looks me in the eye, and she says,
That was a movie, Mother! This is real life!
And now she sounds stern (like my mother)
And I realize, she is not some kind of disenfranchised Manson fan
She is still our descendant, my mother’s and mine
And of all the mothers who came before
Filled with wise practicality, but essentially
Still a teenager, still capable of segueing between life and death
Without feeling its cold fingers on her neck,
so long as I am here to feel on her behalf.