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

––with the unmistakable scent

of Pond's Cold Cream flooding her skin, she thickened

the Junior High School homeroom oxygen, her hair,

spray-fixed to form a sort-of 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

sixty years past, slightly smiling, her torso

skewed forward at the requisite angle.

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 that has ever been.

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