Ace Boggess

“Are You Morbid?”

                                                                                               

                                                —online quiz

I spoke to morticians on the phone each day

as though I ran a helpline for those who knew

too much about grief to feel it. Some

sounded like timid strangers in a quiet room

as they rattled off their litanies of names.

“Melody Anderson,” one would say,

“age sixty-four, went to be with the Lord

at St. Mary’s Hospital,” not stopping

to joke—as we in the newsroom did—

Jesus must have been waiting in the ICU,

resting with a post-op morphine drip in the next room.

Funeral directors found nothing funny—

their job to comfort survivors,

mine to get words right: names,

children, spouses, special friends.

I talked to plotters as though we were

intimates ourselves, mourning over

mass graves covered in newsprint

black. One brought me a Christmas tin

loaded with cookies the other reporters

wouldn’t touch. I ate plenty,

not part of the press at times like this,

so much as customer service. 

Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). His novel, A Song Without a Melody, is forthcoming from Hyperborea Publishing. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.