Photo by Kathryn Dunn
if I said it was an easy death
She would have hated
she'd growl me to the corner
wrong and sorry for itbut her face
I couldn't recognize
nude layers of foundation
smoothed like clay on her skin
transparent
to the blue
of crack house beatings on her cheekbonesit wasn't easy
to be Jane Doe in the cold morgue
days later
her Christian name given back to her
on paper
her body
formalized
transported
transported and again transportedwhere they had only her nose
to work with
the rest of her face broken
and skinny in the pink funeral home light
I hatedto see her hands
nails newly painted
fingers wrapped
in her mother's favorite rosaryB.E. Anstandig
for JRC 1973-1999