Connie Post: How to Sort the Living from the Dead

Forget all the nonsense
about eyes opened or closed
or breathing 
or brain waves
 
Ignore the sallow skin
the pulse
or even the way
they stare back at you
 
find the place 
where the hands 
are swollen with regret
 
find the place where
silence is the chest bone
 
find the dental imprints
of a life not eaten
 
find the eulogy
that is transfixed
in your dust bound bones
 
find the small minutes
where each of us
wander through
a fractured room
 
remember how to
immerse your amnesia
in embalming fluid
 
teach yourself
how to leave a body
and then 
how to return 

Copyright 2020 Connie Post. First published in RiverSedge.

From Prime Meridian by Connie Post, published in 2020 by Glass Lyre Press.