Size / / /

They bring their dead to me daily
Rich or poor they bring their dead
We talk and the purses open
wide, we talk
and the deceased patiently wait
stacked upon wooden slabs
like loaves of stale bread

They leave their dead with me
in my hands
and when my hands finish
working on the living
they go to work on the dead

My instruments shine in the sharp light
incise flesh, saw bones, extract
slightly stiffened organs
The living wait
The dead wait
Osiris' arms open and wait
     Seventy days and nights
for a perfect preservation

This is what it has come down to
A highly paid mechanical science
Insert probes into the nasal passage
puncture skull, stir, scoop and pull
The hollow head gratefully nods

This is what it has come to
Pack the cavities with herbal pouches
carefully prepared, blessed, packed
My hands wrap anointed cloth
blackened, sticky, the preservative odor
permeates my hair, my robes, my hands
wrap and wrap the dead daily
and their purses open wide
and the dead remain
simply dead remains

 

Copyright © 2001 Maryann Hazen-Stearns

Reader Comments


Maryann Hazen-Stearns has recently completed her first collection of poetry, Under the Limbo Stick, courtesy of Straw House Press. She has been published internationally and has won many awards and contests. Mary enjoys work as a Poetry Editor, Poetry Competition Judge. She is also involved with The Alchemy Poetry Club, the Catskill Reading Society, the Woodstock Poetry Society, and Poets & Writers.



Current Issue
25 Mar 2024

Looking back, I see that my initial hope for this episode was that the mud would have a heartbeat and a heart that has teeth and crippling anxiety. Some of that hope has become a reality, but at what cost?
to work under the / moon is to build a formidable tomorrow
Significantly, neither the humans nor the tigers are shown to possess an original or authoritative version of the narrative, and it is only in such collaborative and dialogic encounters that human-animal relations and entanglements can be dis-entangled.
By: Sammy Lê
Art by: Kim Hu
the train ascends a bridge over endless rows of houses made of beams from decommissioned factories, stripped hulls, salvaged engines—
Issue 18 Mar 2024
Strange Horizons
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Issue 5 Feb 2024
Issue 29 Jan 2024
Issue 15 Jan 2024
Issue 8 Jan 2024
Load More
%d bloggers like this: