The mortician who came for my father was too big
for his suit. Young and fit, the muscles
in his arms bulged beneath the fabric like beans
inside their pods. The top of his head was glossy
as a waxed apple, his expression grave.
This is a solemn moment, after all, the removal
of the dead. Please be gentle, I told him as he lifted
my father’s still-warm body as if he was lighter
than a sleeping child. I promise you, he said,
we’ll take care of him like family, and I believed
him. Mercifully, I’ve lost the memory of my
dad being sealed like a letter in that body-sized bag,
though I tell myself he didn’t know it and wasn’t
afraid. But my father never liked feeling closed in.
So I kept my hand on the gurney
as we rolled down the long hallway of rooms where
thousands of loved ones have died—watched
as this sombre young man slid Dad’s body
into a hearse as easy as air leaving a lung, then drive
slowly away—until there was nothing left to see
of my father but the future without him.
Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven collections of poetry, including A Sun Inside My Chest (Press 53), winner of the International Book Award for Poetry. Her work has won numerous awards and has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, ONE ART, Rattle, The SUN, and many other publications.