Wild Hearses

by James Kangas

Wild hearses are running
around the countryside
eager to pick up their
passengers. But no one is
ready. There is no

greeting committee
anywhere, no porch light
on, no door, no window
ajar. Yet the hearses
keep coming, pull

into gravel driveways,
make clouds of dust,
wheel around to wait
for the timorous who
need to be nudged that

last little bit over
the doorsill. My fellow
mortals, why is it
so hard to see them
as welcome wagons?

James Kangas is a retired librarian living in Flint, Michigan. His poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Decadent Review, New York Quarterly, Penn Review, Unbroken, et al. His chapbook, Breath of Eden (Sibling Rivalry Press), was published in 2019.