“coroner’s office closed at 8,
you’ll have to wait ‘til morning.”
                                                                   the receiver clicks shut, and
an undercurrent of unease laps against
      the white-knuckled atmosphere.
                                                          in the floor above, grandma’s milky retinas
                                                            peer up at the ceiling; her bloated form
                                                                 ossifying with every elapsed second.

                                        outside,
                                            father fingers her old Brazilian cigarillos
                            seething with maudlin pride at the acetic tobacco.
as evening totters by, in the drawing room
           mother, brother, and I smother our conversation
                                           in stale liquor; our thoughts draw themselves closer
                to those last days of watery ambivalence:
             of grandmother flitting aimlessly about
        a marketplace mudlark, with an eye for chaffer
     and a parching affinity for the exotic
   once attic salt marinating into sickly mirth,
     she wove wooden curses into kitchen countertops
                                throaty laughter and wrinkled touches
                                                  lingering in her wake.
when daybreak arrives,
                            we turn our heads to the sound of
                                          felt-laced spatterdashes crunching against morning frost
                                             as banyan-wrapped officers circle the matinee.
         from a distance, ruddy-faced children perched
        upon rotting stumps thread hushed whispers
        through the listless town;
                                                                                my ears, craving solace,
                                                 prompt me to follow my brother’s hunched shadow
                                         and we step into the rays of dewy ether
                                       to watch the rosy-fingered sun chase our moon
                               onto the dauby blue canvas; the sun dog
                                              barks at Baltic dawn, and Ariadne’s thread
                           winds down like coiling snakeskin around fetid detritus.
together, we lounge in mournful rectitude:
                               father clutches the ormolu-scrolled urn in deserted rancor
                                 mother’s cries disembogue into cyanic commiseration
                the children are whimpering now; their eyes
          dogging the alabaster shroud as
            we watch the bier crawl into the distance, and a
                                                           weighted cross bears itself against our throats.

brother hands me our leftover drinks, and
                                            I raise grandmother’s chipped porcelain crucible
                        against my chapped, sunbaked lips, downing
              hard spirits under the aureate glow of tomorrow, the
          last of some unsung elegy lost forevermore
on the tip of my tongue, muddy presque vu
                                                                            
                                                                            or otherwise.