Soon it was my turn to sit with my cousin’s body.
They took away my navel orange and bottle of watersince to chew and swallow were acts now impossible for the body,offensive to its state in the bardo.
The lawyers were sorting through thingsin his musty apartment across town—where’s the will, the accounts,the insurance policy? He lived alone there for twenty-five years,his mother’s wig in a drawer, his father’s hat on a hook.
He was a dentist but maintained the fiction of beinga business consultant in order to attend trade shows –technology, textiles, furniture, candy and toys.
During the vigil, it is forbidden to fulfill a commandment,again, to avoid insulting the limited range of the dead.
His place was stacked high with boxes of brochures,you could smell the mildewing paper…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, November/December 2024