Brittany Atkinson

Missing the Funeral

How do I unrot your body? Dead
skin, dead hair, dead fingernails.
They buried you, but I was not there
to hear one gravedigger ask another,
Is six feet deep enough for a six-foot
body? I did not see them shovel to
entomb your casket: a wooden beetle
burrowed beneath dew-blanketed
dirt. And yet I still have nightmares:
everyone wears masks made of
maggots. I bury this image only when
I see your face in the slope of my
mother’s nose, not quite hooked
enough to invite the words kids threw
at you: Here comes the Jew. These
words live on while the coffin rots. So
how can I not picture the saddened
sag of the oak caving into the etch of
what’s left of your frame? A frame
once large enough to consume a room
from floor to ceiling, or at least that’s
what we’d say. It’s been months since
I abandoned my mug of tea at the call
of your absence. The bag now bathes
in its own rot: saturated and bottom-
sunk, tea leaves black and frowning.
Yes, six feet is probably deep enough,
but still do seven. It’s better to dig too
deep into the dark and damp than
leave a body too close to the sun.

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Brittany Atkinson is a first-year MFA candidate at Western Washington University. Her work can be found in Barren Magazine, Electric Moon Magazine and Picaroon Poetry. When she isn't writing, she enjoys roller skating, thrifting and drinking vanilla oat milk lattes.