anatomy of a cremation

They call it a pyre


because some things must be named plainly

wood stacked by men who know


how to make endings

stand upright, logs leaning into each other


the way families do
when there is no other choice

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The air was strange as a foreign word

one might clumsily translate it to “ending”

but it was something closer to “aftermath”

flames edit carefully

of course it was your hands

that resisted the longest, then

your cracked feet, sickle-sharp

from marching the paddy

is fire just?

is fire graceful?

victims die: for that is their main verb

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your son will soon learn

that to live with grief is to learn

how to live

twenty-four hours in a day

& I, to write myself

into silence, thinking: what does it mean


to write for good translation?


To make a sentence so clean


it survives another mouth?

& isn’t that how grief is 


a word that needs carrying
from one language

to the next
hoping it won’t lose its teeth?

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I understand now why you stayed

and why you left

you see I know now

justice is just: there’s a transaction


perform x good, receive y reward

but you see, you showed me

how grace distinguishes itself from everything else

grace is unearned: it begins with the reward

Goodness never enters the question

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I walked home, my hands

smelling faintly of iron and absence

of grace, turning justice over in my mouth

terrified of hinges being suddenly swung shut

on lush descriptions

of love, and your sound slowly leaving me

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In the courtyard the pyre lowered itself


into its own mouth, the bright part was done

what remained was the dawn

blood blue and strange as a foreign word

one might clumsily translate it to “sky”

but it was something closer to “heaven”


the last ember held its thin note


against the coming dark

Ajoba (आजोबा), I did love you there, hour of the world

and every hour of the world

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