Body Parts
       

They wouldn't let me
at the body.
Said
we need a few days.
We'll let you know.

Meanwhile
they scooped out his brain
and weighed it.
Weighed his heart,
his liver.
Made note of his last meal,
the alcohol-swirl
in his veins.
His "Funk Blast"
t-shirt, scissored
down the middle
to release him
to the scalpel.

When finished with the scale,
the ruler,
all was piled back
into the slit-open cavity
that was my husband.
Even the brain,
packed back
into a fractured skull.

When the funeral director called
I said
show me the hands.
The hands and forearms.
No stitchery of jaw and lip,
no thick paste of stage makeup.
I wanted to claim the blood-
truth of what was left:
sinew, cartilege,
all the pooled bruises.

Even so,
I reached beneath the shroud
to cradle his head —
what god of mercy
granted me
a fistful of hair
and nothing else?

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Copyright © 2022 T. Clear All rights reserved
from A House, Undone
MoonPath Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission