Wake

By A Jessie Michael

I awake to a wake,
(my very own it seems)
Of people familiar and not,
Unaware that I am awake at my wake.

What have I left 
in the wake of my awake life-
A speed boat existence
Swirling a lengthy, frothy wake?

How many were drenched by
The spray of my life’s wake?
I never turned to see
Too busy awake to the things before me

Now they reminisce, drink, smoke and snack
To keep awake at my wake.
“Go home. Sleep!” I say
But to them I’m not awake.

They keep awake at my wake
To celebrate me dead.
Where were they
When I was truly awake?

“O we were there,” they chatter.
“We were drenched by the wake
Of your speedboat existence.
Were you truly ever awake?”

A. Jessie Michael is a retired Associate Professor of English from Malaysia. She has written short stories for online journals, local magazines and newspapers. She has published an anthology of short stories Snapshots, with two other writers and most recently her own anthology The Madman and Other Stories (2016).

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