My father, almost shaken by the thought
of handling a dead body,
my mother voices disbelief,
saying she could not have done what I did.

I told them I had placed
the body inside a sack,
tied it with straw—
I told them of the stiffness,
the dull eyes, and the open mouth.

But I didn’t tell them I had stroked her neck,
like I did when she was a puppy,
closed her mouth, her eyes—
a prayer, a gesture to make her whole again.
I didn’t tell them the ritual
of care, small and sacred,
the tenderness that lingered
in her rigid, cold form.

I didn’t tell them what I was thinking,
what that silence did to me—
the emptiness of it,
what it had done to my mind.