What It’s Like
By: Ryan M. W.
Mom had those
Varicose veins.
Rivers of life ran
Her arms from
Elbow to knuckle,
Knee to toe,
Crossing under,
Weaving over each other.
A perfect network,
Life’s corridors,
Her essence.
Whatever God
She believed in
Must have adored
His handiwork,
Because he took it back.
I asked
What it’s like
To be cremated.
Mom didn’t like surprises.
After they told me,
I felt shaken
Like a soda can,
Or at least
a lonely, oblong,
Imperfect bubble inside
Waiting for the crack of the tab.
I must have been pale.
They regretted telling me.
I tried to stay strong.
I had to. I didn’t.
Auntie’s face was wet.
Matted with hair.
Caked in sweat.
Head on a swivel,
She’d bolt any second.
Her nostrils flared,
Lava bubbling in
Anticipation of
Eruption.
She wailed
Louder and louder,
Then quieter. A heave,
And nothing. Agape,
No sound.
A top losing momentum.
Grandma was stoic.
She carried Auntie.
She had called me
Two days before,
‘This is the hardest news
You’ll ever get,’
No regard for her
Breaking it.
An ox, she carried the weight
— Our grief, our fatigue
Without second thought.
She’d known death, her parents
Not Jewish, but still
The wrong German.
They got lucky, I heard.
Dad, newly sober.
He wasn’t fully there,
Out of the bottle.
He’d gone before I was 6,
They’d married that year.
The Bahamas, no less.
He remembered most
The open bar, not
The warm, salty breeze — nor her.
He became a statue,
Eyes pinned to the floor
When they called
‘Time for the viewing.’
He never kissed her,
Just the gin on her lips.
Mom was laid flat
In a cardboard casket.
The hospital gown
Covered her squarely.
I stared for a while,
Waiting.
She still had
her varicose veins,
I hoped she would move.
They wouldn’t let her
I know it.
Lips sewn shut
To prevent her
Saying what’s next,
Or even Goodbye.
Ryan M. W. is a new poet living in the Appalachian mountains where he studies East Asian history and takes his coffee black. His work is forthcoming in Yearling and his favorite butterfly is Jamie.