Bier noun
- a table or platform on which a coffin or dead body is placed at a funeral
A Rose for Emily, Part 5 Paragraph 2
“they held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men…”
Reading the story, I figured the word bier meant mantle, this certainly paints a different picture.
