The Washing of the Body
Blood carries oxygen & each muscle
hungers for it
a fluorescent stutters above your head
I don’t understand then I do
gasp to gasp I hold your hand your hand
becoming air &
after a while we get hungry
we ride the elevator down & after a while
you stop
Marie: What happens now?
Nurse: First we wash the body,
then we send him downstairs.
Marie: Can we be the ones to wash him—
I mean, can the men?
~
Twenty years I’ve tried to write this
only to end up
this isn’t it, this isn’t it
here
~
Again:
your mother
as we came off the elevator her tears
her palm on your door
Marie tells us
a pure light filled the room tells us
we would be the ones
that we would be the ones to wash you
the door behind us closes
~
A year earlier (or was it after?) in Prague I’d
stood before a mural at the Jewish
cemetery, twelve
panels (twelve?), a body passed
from death bed to grave
one panel titled
the washing of the body
& three men stood around him
& each held a cloth
~
The light dimmed now no one knows how
to begin
then one finds a pan & fills it then one floats
a small bar of soap
one says I’ve never seen a body
one says I’ve never touched one
A dead one one laughs He’s still here
one says
one calls you sweetie
we each take a cloth Billy,
we’re going to wash you now,
Billy, sweetheart
~
I tried to write about the blizzard
I got stranded
after we scattered your ash
my truck (remember?)—your tv, your
chair, your rug—in back it never made it
to the city, I abandoned it all in
the snow
~
The hair on your thigh mats beneath
my hand
faint blue your lips your nostrils caked
blood
one strokes your forehead
one spreads your toes
He’s in good shape one says
No wasting one says
~
The ring on your finger soap won’t release it
it’s almost too late
you can almost not hear
once we untie your johnny the ring is all
that isn’t you
your back still warm where the blood
pools
one whispers Sweetie,
we’re going to roll you over now
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