Standstill

There it is, finally, the square black box 

with a faint birr, a voltage, on my front doorstep.  

This is what is left of you, dear brother

your skull, your ribs and femurs, 

your sick liver and blistered lungs, 

your bad teeth, your voice

all drained into this box.

I’m afraid to hold you long so I sit you down 

quickly so not to drop you, trying not to tip you 

so that your fragments do not collide

and so here you sit on the window sill

which your presence makes into an altar 

so I step back with tingling and shudders, 

unable to open the box, to touch it again. 

I can only stand, still as you, stiller even

as if alone and frozen on a glacier, eyeing the

box as if there were still a ticking 

coming from your heart, as if I could smell smoke, as if 

a force pushes me away from you. 

I can’t imagine what you look like in there. 

I have read about cremation

it’s the trend now--the dead choose burning. 

They want their fillings and metal valves, plastic 

replacements melted down, smoked, 

their loose particles coming to a cool standstill, 

living only in mortal minds

that worry how to scatter them.