Memories of him

[busker]

I am struggling with the flow in this poem. My personal feeling is that some of the lines are stilted. Please let me know your thoughts.

Incense drifts through the air
like a scented cloud
hoping to quell the grief in the room.

Their words are jumbled.
Murmurs of pity and shock, and
the occasional stab at empathy.
Words reel like wires, criss crossing
until they stitch a safety net
over the pain, still infant, resting
in a quiet stupor until a sudden memory
pries its lips open.

His photograph looms over the incense sticks.
The flowers around his garland*** are still fresh, virginal,
like the wound.
His smile is rapturous as ever,
stirring memories of
our wedding day.

Rings of smoke from the pyre
mingled with tender jasmine
as i glanced sidelong at him, finding the
corners of his mouth tilt,
erupting into a smile.
Waves of conversation, undulating,
faded into the background
as he curled his fingers over my chin, damp with tears.
The tears flowed like rivers of ecstasy,
soaking his palm as he looked at me,
eyes softened, reaching over
to wipe my cheek.

The murmurs die slowly
as still silence pervades the room.
I hold his lifeless hand over my warm cheek,
soaked in tears
from the memory, still fresh.

***Flower garlands around a deceased person's photograph tend to be a custom at Indian funerals

Hi Savannah - your observation is correct in that the lines are stilted, the phrases hackneyed.
The good thing is that you're aware of it, so you can fix it.
Let's look at the first strophe:

Incense drifts through the air

like a scented cloud
hoping to quell the grief in the room.

You could try and find a better substitute for 'drifts through the air'. The moment you say incense, the 'drifts through the air' is a cliched, boring expression.
Then there's 'like a scented cloud'. First, it is exactly that - a scented cloud of incense smoke. Not sure why there's a simile. But even if you went for the simile, 'scented cloud' is about as cliched as it gets.
Then there's the third line - 'quell the grief' - also weather-worn, but as importantly, the whole line comes across as clunky. Why would the incense 'hope' to do anything? It's a throwaway attempt at anthropomorphisation just because (well, because you were trying to finish that line, the reader would think).
Other cliches in the poem:  'rapturous smiles', 'silence pervades', 'stirring memories', 'waves of conversation' (the last being more ham-handed than cliched).

I would also avoid the use of hyperbolic / cliched expressions such as  'ecstasy', 'virginal', 

On the other hand, this strophe is quite good, and could be the whole poem:

Their words are jumbled.
Murmurs of pity and shock, and
the occasional stab at empathy.
Words reel like wires, criss crossing
until they stitch a safety net
over the pain, still infant, resting
in a quiet stupor until a sudden memory
pries its lips open.

Maybe if you just focused on that flash of insight and did away with the preamble and the epilogue, you'd have better results.