Mourning is messy business.
It’s not a flat plane from here
To there. It’s uneven
like the ridged underside
of your tongue, the slip
and fall of words, stalagmites.
Death is not clean. It’s all
black maw and smell of rot,
dreams of bats and dust,
gutters and ghosts.
The only precise thing
are the limbs, their
geometric stillness. Ignore
the radio static in your head.
Maintain decorum. Do not
run after the hearse in a dirty
nightgown. Do not howl wolflike
over the body. There is no live
thing trapped in there. It is not
a mistake. There will be no
scratching at the door
or under the earth at midnight.
Do not drink unnecessary
amounts of water; the rasp
is just the beginnings of a sore
throat, not the start of something
cancerous. Do eat.
The digestive system
is your one, unassailable proof
of being alive.
*First published in Mosaic, a Unisun anthology
