Because he lived above the tree line, they could not
burn him. They could not
bury him because the ground would not break. So they
stitched him into his bedclothes,
carried him up the mountain, and let the bodybreakers
do the rest, let them
carve arm from arm from torso from arm from torso from
leg and leg and
leave the rest intact, leave his body broken beneath
the sky, and leave
and send word to you that, because a body is always broken in
more ways than the eye sees, someone you loved
had died and you need to collect the rest of his things, that you
need to solve for empty shirt, broken glass, empty
hands, fields of years
frozen silent in their sleep— If stasis had a better name,
you would know what to do.
If white noise meant any shade other than the stone dark of
a closed eye, you would
remember that a hammer can also build, a shoulder can also
hold, nightshade can wake,
you would remember the swollen song the body sings to itself
as it stitches itself back together
in sleep. And you would sleep. You would let the train
that carries you home carry you
past the forests that were not there to burn, over the ground
that could not break—
You lay your head against the window until it becomes
a glass chest breathing sky. You say,
if there is a chest, it is his chest.
