What We Do For Our Dead

We collect them, we mark them, we cut them, and we take from them. Thanks, you said yes when you got your license

We stuff, we stitch, we clean, we dress, and present. Suits, dresses, necklace, rings, watches, bracelets, earrings (perfume and cologne to cover the embalmed smell)

We either celebrate their life or death, cry and praise, and wonder what life could have been. Their secrets, taken with them to the grave.

We dig, put them in a hole and cover them to keep them warm. Then you must pay for a marker, a slab of stone.

We divide their stuff or give it away or argue over it. And we know it will never be put to use like before, again

We clean their place for their return or sell it to the best bidder for money to burn.

I think about them in my memory, my sacred memory where they will live on until what was done for them is done for me.