No mourning ceremony
to fill funeral pews.
Parley on a twin bed,
quilt sheets and scissors
unspooling newsprint threads
off the morning paper.
Sunlight cast across bedhead, crumbs
in the wet pink corners of either eye.
There are no burials, he thinks
no ash to ash.
Not for us.
The clear seran cover of the album page
peeled open like a coffin lid
No taste for weeping, just coffee
nutty, medium roast, the smell in his eyes
A headline carved from the spread:
SHADOW-WOMAN KILLED IN RAID.
Laid to rest
beside a pressed violet
between folds of memories.
Articles on modern science
civil rights, a gala, an editorial comic
a human interest story
about a father that had his children taken from him.
He seals the tomb doors
with a flip of the book cover.
Palm flat against it
to hold down the remembrance of a time
when the darkness had been kind.
The name Audrey Garrett
may earn a family tombstone.
The name Nox, only this.
Then he has to shower
and go to work.
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