Preparing the Body


When the words were said
“He’s dead”
something gripped me around the middle
and tugged me toward the floor.
I was surprised to find I didn’t follow or fall.

Three days later my arms were swollen and splitting.
Rashes came, too, relentless as I watched his death ravage my skin.
I couldn’t understand why physical pain
had to be added to this mix.

I didn’t want to go to the memorial;
too much love and sorrow in one room.
I thought about asking if I could go
wherever what was left of him was being kept
to say goodbye as we had lived---
the life of singular friends, alone.

A few days later in the shower, it occurred to me the final gift
was to make sure I was not the one to find him.
I thought of every metaphor for life and every story of mourning;
of Lazarus’ sisters and of the crucifixion and the women with their oils,
of Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, and the irony of it all…
that our’s are the bodies that needed preparation.

I remember pronouncing my forecast for recovery from a boy-broken heart
from the floor of his sun dappled room in Michigan in 1983.
I scoffed “Let’s see, that one was here for a year and it took me five to get over!"
He was here for thirty; by my mathematics, I will never outlive this grief.

The chrysalis came in the mail and I felt like
I was inside that shell and that everything in me
would have to change to come out resembling something alive.
In my champagne colored car, I imagined the paint specks along the roof line
like the gilded spots on the swaddling paper hanging in my classroom.

Inside I sing, I pray, I ask him to help me find sleep.
I remember the places we have sat together. I recall the sound of his harrowing cry.
When I hear it now, it is mine. Occasionally, I smile.
I will stay in here a while; I am preparing the body. I was going to say when I emerge
I will love the world again, but the truth is, I love it now.

C.M.Carroll 10/16/10