-pictured- (from the death notes No.6)

with the unmistaken scent

of Pond's Cold Cream

flooding her skin, she thickened

the Junior High School homeroom oxygen,

her hair spray-fixed like a helmet.

the local newspaper is a landscape

rich with news of the recently deceased.

we picture her "laid-out."

we picture how her family

dressed her for the viewing;

the powder blue chiffon 

for the occasion of dust to dust.

she’s laid-out,—

her hands fold stiffly across her frozen lap;

fingers like strands in cold porcelain,

her wedding band pressed into her stubby finger

inflated beyond the parameters of its ring of gold.

a photograph sits on a table as she was

fifty years past, slightly smiling, her torso

skewed forward at the requisite angle.

she wasn't a friend, not even an acquaintance.

she's remembered here simply as being among us,

scribbling assignments at her desk, quick-stepping

between classes, her books held close to her chest,

her knees pressed tightly together, sitting behind us

in the graded auditorium as if she instinctively knew.

she always seemed filled with cement.

and now it comes to pass that she surrenders herself

to the column of her notice.

she leaves behind everything there is and has ever been.

her name is: "departed loving wife mother of two."