upended

they forgot to refrigerate the corpse 

so they told her not to come

to pay her last respects to her 

troublesome dead daughter who died 

not from the pandemic but from an odd set of circumstances 

that never should have happened but did as befitted her 

troublesome dead daughter’s peculiarities 

but still she mourned because

it is never right that white should bury black because 

it should be the other way around black buries white

and so she was alone only receiving occasional phone calls as 

she awaited news of the cremation because 

in the time of the pandemic no funerals were allowed and 

that gaping hole where once there were societal norms 

bore her away too

©2020Karen Casady