Obituary
by Sara Sheiner
He died inside his encyclopedic knowledge, in what he knew of what the mouth does, what the mouth is for, teeth, tongue palate, oral cavity, he died unable to pronounce the words daughter, family, heart attack though he could wrap his teeth around them. I take his body, I try to read him like braille. I have trouble with the words gravestone, father, suicide. I find in him the photograph of a wolf, I feel its howl, I feel its need. I find in him the line drawing of a small plane, I feel its propeller, its wings. I take his skin and fold it into a book. I do not know what to do with his body. I consider a pack of wolves with their many mouths and rows of teeth, I consider throwing him from a many mile height, feeding him into fastly whirring blades. Instead I take his skin-book and put it in a drawer. I leave his insides to be buried where I will never find them.
Sara Sheiner is currently an MFA poetry candidate at Virginia Tech, where she has been the recipient of the 2014 Poetry Society of Virginia Prize, judged by Rachel Zucker, & the Emily Morrison Prize in Poetry, selected by Dorothea Lasky. Her work has recently appeared in littletell & The Volta & is upcoming in The Meadow. She lives in Blacksburg, VA, where she teaches composition & continues to be a poetry reader for The Atlas Review.