Issue 25 – 2014 – Nick Flynn

Nick Flynn

 

The Washing of the Body

Blood carries oxygen & each muscle 

                                        hungers for it 

 

             a fluorescent stutters above your head 

I don’t understand     then I do 

gasp to gasp I hold your hand     your hand 
                         becoming air & 

 

                         after a while we get hungry 

               we ride the elevator down & after a while 

 

                                                      you stop 

 

                           Marie: What happens now? 
                           Nurse: First we wash the body, 

                                      then we send him downstairs. 

                           Marie: Can we be the ones to wash him— 

                                      I mean, can the men? 

Twenty years I’ve tried to write this 
              only to end up 

 

                        this isn’t it, this isn’t it 
here 

~

Again:

 

                                      your mother 
as we came off the elevator         her tears 

 

her palm on your door 

                                      Marie tells us 
a pure light filled the room         tells us 

 

                         we would be the ones 

 

             that we would be the ones to wash you

 

the door behind us closes 

~

A year earlier (or was it after?) in Prague I’d 
              stood before a mural at the Jewish 

 

                           cemetery, twelve 

 

panels (twelve?), a body passed 
             from death bed to grave 

 

one panel titled 
                            the washing of the body 

 

        & three men stood around him 
& each held a cloth 

~

The light dimmed now     no one knows how 
                                                               to begin 

 

then one finds a pan & fills it     then one floats 
                                        a small bar of soap 

 

one says       I’ve never seen a body 
one says       I’ve never touched one 

 

A dead one      one laughs      He’s still here 
                                                  one says 

 

            one calls you sweetie 

 

we each take a cloth     Billy, 
we’re going to wash you now,

 

                                              Billy, sweetheart

~

I tried to write about the blizzard 
I got stranded 
                         after we scattered your ash 

my truck (remember?)—your tv, your 
chair, your rug—in back       it never made it 

 

                           to the city, I abandoned it all in 
the snow 

~

The hair on your thigh mats beneath 
                                                    my hand 

 

faint blue your lips      your nostrils caked 
                                         blood 

 

one strokes your forehead 
            one spreads your toes 

 

He’s in good shape     one says 
                           No wasting      one says 

~

The ring on your finger     soap won’t release it 
it’s almost too late 
                                      you can almost not hear 

 

once we untie your johnny the ring is all 
that isn’t you 

 

your back still warm where the blood 
                                                       pools 

 

one whispers         Sweetie, 
we’re going to roll you over now 

 

 

In previous incarnations Nick Flynn has worked as a ship’s captain, an electrician, and a caseworker with homeless adults. He is currently a professor on the creative writing faculty of the University of Houston. His most recent book is The Reenactments (Norton, 2013). The poem herein is forthcoming in My Feelings (Graywolf, 2015).

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