AKFAK
By Rey Meyer
I wonder of
mummification
bodies reduced
to leather-like flesh
vacuum-sealed against
dissolving bones
compressing
like an apple
dehydrated for
extended retail.
Is it purpose
to be set behind
glass, peace to be
laid to rest with
an audience,
or dispensed from
microscope to
mind to
man,
for the sake of
education
spectacle
history?
Is it preferable
to be without
record at all?
Barely catching
the light, a faint
reflection upon glass:
I see my chest
expanding
contracting
rise and fall with
each silent breath.
They are cut short,
tightness in my
upper-middle back
where I carry
the most tension
as if someone
pinched my spine
in the center,
began twisting
the way one would
tie-dye a shirt.
I wonder how
it would be to
never again
feel the relief
of peeling my
stiff shoulders back,
placing knuckles
against vertebrae
and drawing elbows
together for
the sweet release
of the crack.
One elbow: pilgrim,
the other: shrine,
never to kiss.
I wonder how
it would be for
my lips to grow cold,
never again
to find their way
to another’s.
I wonder if
I’d know my last thought
is just that,
if empty mind
would grant the peace
I spend waking days
searching for,
or if the pain
would cruelly outlast
awareness,
keeping peace a
distant stranger.
I wonder how
it would be to
be without breath.
Perhaps it would
be like nothing.
Nothing, at all.