You insisted on an open casket. Hard proof, evidence of generous witness.
I remember it was rhubarb season, early spring, and your absence
deepened the long shadows laying gently across your receiving body.
Lilies (yellow, your favorite color) and fresh cut dandelions,
still dripping defensive sticky milk, held the light of your horizon.
Your life’s silhouette now full circle. Our mutual failures
vanished into pedantic memories and obscured the reverent silence.
I force myself to swallow the always-disappearing now.
There is pleasure in this remembrance, a type of muscle memory,
while I actively grope for a future. Even this specific meaning-making,
if shockingly ordinary, is superstitious in its suffering.
I’ve learned to gather these blurred edges, glints of everyday living,
as gravity compliments a recursive temptation towards animality.
Cache Culture 