Identifying the Body

The earth has completed another elliptical swing around the sun, signifying the passing of another year in my life. The event was celebrated by those closest to me in the sharing of cards, phone calls, cakes, bottles of wine. I managed to be out of town for the actual day, not by design, but by happy coincidence. You remember when you were young, and birthdays couldn’t come soon enough, representing sought after milestones in life: staying up later at night, a new driver’s license, the start of the dating ritual. Now, our focus has changed, as we congratulate each other on having survived yet another year, making not very original jokes regarding feared loss of bodily functions, not the least of which is memory. I have been rather fortunate in my life, with blessings in greater numbers than tragedies, and few, if any, regrets. One of my favorite writers, Mark Twain, once observed, “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” I am grateful that I have been granted the grand essentials of happiness: something to do, something to love, something to hope for. I also appreciate that the ride is short, and we all have to get off at some time. Therefore, the following poem:

 

Identifying the Body

 

At the morgue dead are reduced

to a face

horizontal

smaller than life.

 

My father: gray-orange

handsome, not cold.

I touched the hard cheek

and remember him

even in my fingers.

 

My wife could not view

her mother.

 

After twenty-five years

I remember her both ways, still.

Loss is persistent as bone.

 

When they raise the sheet on me

do this last kind thing:

tell them, That’s him,

my husband.

 

Husband once meant tiller

of soil or master of the house

but words have more lives

than skin.

 

Just say, Yes.

I will be in your hands.

 

Gary Stein

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