GRIEF Poem: To a Friend Opening a Crematorium Bill, by Koren Zailckas
POETRY READINGS
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1m 27s
Performed by Val Cole
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POEM:
To A Friend Opening a Crematorium Bill
“It turns out, it’s expensive to die,”
You say.
And I picture you,
half in shadow,
reading price lists like hymns,
offering fire as mercy
to your wife,
who can no longer afford
to lie still in peace.
They’ve monetized the exit,
stitched barcodes to grief—
a surcharge for silence,
a fee for the ash’s release.
Even absence, it seems,
must earn its keep.
After the birth of each of my children,
I was astonished to be handed an invoice.
There was my swaddled daughter,
and myself, split and weeping,
and someone, clipboard in hand,
asking for a credit card
To secure our private room.
What isn’t for sale?
Time? Space? A body?
When people come or go,
that ought to be transaction enough.
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