“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has since said that the risk of being infected from a dead body is low, because they do not exhale.”
‘Humans need the ritual of saying goodbye’: the Covid life of a small-town funeral director
Some branches still have fruit, hanging heavy and waiting.
Other branches broadcast their superior ability to let go.
What is found in this imagined center is a hymn.
Do I leave the gaps alone and pick apart what remains?
Flickering waves of mutilation swell tight and solicitous
as an echo at the horizon. Curves turn into cliffs.
When asked how I survived this year, a question loaded with context,
I answer: I’ve taken to stroking tree trunks to experience exotic touch,
to feel materiality of time.
By the time attempts to describe loss become offerings of intimacy,
the muted shine of flashbacks turn into conviction. I was always here—
in this impermanent place.
I too remain untrustworthy like a cloud. What comes next
is future’s damage. Replication, pattern, or suggestion: between “be well” and “goodbye” is tomorrow’s hopeful exhale.
Cache Culture 