by Kory Wells

All week his hands on my body and I cannot
think of anything but your body
on a silver table in a cold room awaiting knife
and gloved touch, awaiting fluid or fire,
a final ruse that the course of dust to dust
is ours to rule. Oh, to be doctor,
coroner, undertaker, god of blood and muscle
and nerve. Oh, to understand. The impossible idea
your body was done with this world.

So much now fills me with grief,
even the way my husband gazes into my eyes,
urging me toward love.

Love, the last thing

you did was decorate the tree. I want
to pack up the entire season, nestle
my broken ornaments in an attic box.
The thin jagged glass will always remind me.

All week I’ve turned him away.
Now I look to a cottoned sky and practice releasing your name.

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Kory Wells is the author of Sugar Fix, poetry from Terrapin Books. Her writing has been featured on The Slowdown poetry podcast and appears in James Dickey Review, Ruminate, Stirring, The Southern Poetry Anthology, and elsewhere. The recent inaugural poet laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Kory nurtures connection and community through her writing, storytelling, and advocacy for the arts, democracy, and other good causes.