for A.H.
She’s tired of finding bodies
in beds or bathtubs, innocent
and empty until memory fills them.
Whether she heard the last breath
or missed it isn’t the point.
She didn’t choose this,
the cleanup afterwards,
the telephone calls,
the scattering of what was owned
heavier than ashes
and left behind.
She’s tired of responsibility
sorting through a life cluttered at her feet
simply because she was there
to wipe dust from the reminder
that what we keep stays long after us.
The Egyptian kings had it right,
she says, burying everything
with the mummy to use in the underworld,
as only souls are weighed on that scale
to assess innocence;
nothing else of what is brought
important in that measure.
Better yet, in suttee
burn the house, the too-big
or too-small fabric
rainbowing the closet; brighter
than the 40-year-old
kindergarten fingerpaintings
in a box under the bed;
the bank accounts, the bills,
the estate lawyers, the losing
of those last hours. Burn it all
and walk away empty,
free, nearly weightless
as only what’s dead can be.
Susan Daniels Poetry 
fantastic, so strong and elegant
Thank you, Ray. I find it odd that viewing someone else’s experience from the outside, even while close to it and them, can coalesce your own experience of loss and cleanup afterwards.
Very powerful. Such a stark interpretation. Love it.
Thank you so much. It was a rough write.
really dig the last stanza !!
Thanks, don!
Chilling.
yesterday was exactly that.
I understand.
In the same spirit…
Ah, I feel so free now, with it all burned away.
wow – you made “burn everything” an anthem
The loved dead
weigh like lead
before the hollow
in the soft featherbed
I now share with pain
How can emptiness
weigh this much?
Flames will burn
but they will thaw
neither my heart nor my head
full and still filling up
with pain unweighable
but dense like cold lead
Oh, well done Noel! Yes–the dead are weightless, but we living–we carry it all.