Choose a Story Where Eulogies Are Never Given

but families still come to collect the ashesafter the bodies are burned in undisclosedlocations, after latex-covered hands

have kissed them goodbye w/out carew/out permission, w/out the sound of hymnsto ease the transition. There are no Amens

sung at the end of prayers for black men& women, no lotion applied to their cold ashyfaces, no last "Sunday Best" suit to hem

or tailor before the casket door closes.In New Haven, CT, a man requests to see caretakerswho carried pandemic on the lines of their hands

& into his brother's nursing home. They handedhis sibling to a furnace where they dispose of black menso they can never grow back up from the dirt to take care

of the earth. & doctors chose an urn for the ashesw/out a second thought or phone call to the closestliving relative; to the younger brother who knew him

as a second father, who knew himas flesh, bone, & beer belly; or those flaccid handsthat grew weak from opening & closing

around the coarse husks of jute, that could mendthe midsoles of worn shoes, that were ashenfrom playing in wooden powder used to lime & care

for crops of maize & millets that never caredenough to feed his family. How does his brother honor himwhen there is no body? How does one kiss the ashes

of their loved ones goodbye? There are no handsleft to hold when you are considered a menace;something to incinerate, an inconvenience. & I am closer

to these men than I would like to admit, & thus closerto death than I would like or have ever caredto think about, because I've seen the corpses of black men

walking around before they go to the morgue & are hemmedup by morticians. Like my grandpa, who tells stories in off-handedcountry bumbles, where words tend to break like lines on ashy

brown skin. I've always had to listen closely to him humhis blues in a deep-fried vernacular, but there is no song whenhe hands me his brother's ashes to go & rest in his rocking chair.