“Topical Disinfectant” by Sharon Kennedy-Nolle

Topical Disinfectant

that’s what they hosed you down with
For $295, tossed in the cost of funeral expenses,

along with “Basic Arrangements” & “Supervision for Visitation”
“Supervision for Funeral Services” & “Custodial Care” as if you’re an overflowing wastebasket

or brimming toilet, itemized to clear $10k
on a bill made out on your birthday

Did you need this douse, this little insult, small offense
to lighten the puckered stench while they performed their dark work?

It’s like alcohol-swabbing the inmate’s arm
for the needle that will kill

My son, this body, your soul’s vessel was sacred,
the stuff of Elysium ceremony 

which I would kiss and anoint and garland

if I could have seen you but one last time —

before the beetles begin
and the coffin flies descend

Until you become starlight
parceled to the tarsal-free skies

And what did it accomplish, anyhow?

Except to shovel into me
mouthful after mouthful of dirt.

Sharon Kennedy-Nolle

Sharon Kennedy-Nolle’s poetry has appeared or is upcoming in Bluestem, Chicago Quarterly Review, Cider Press Review, Juked, Lips Poetry Magazine, MacGuffin, Round, Midwest Quarterly, and Pennsylvania English, among others, while her dissertation was published as Writing Reconstruction: Race, Gender, and Citizenship in the Postwar South (University of North Carolina Press, 2015).

Headshot: Frances F. Denny

Picture Credit: Staff