Obituarize, (v.) To write an
obituary notice of or for (a person); to make the subject of an obituary
I suppose that / is where religion begins / The house we must
enter / when we
close the final door
--from Matt Henriksen’s “Kaveh’s Window”
For Matt Henriksen, in memoriam
Every
obituary I ever wrote
was
revised by a non-writer. Passed away
turned
resting in the arms of Jesus; bound
for Beulah land subbed in for died.
She loved to sing Ella
Fitzgerald tunes
became
her smile could light up any
room; master of Texas BBQ
changed
to a joke always on his lips.
I
learn today that there are maps
for
these phrases, that where we live
is
particular to euphemisms
for
our deaths: the east coast departs
and the west coast succumbs. In
Appalachia,
the deceased went home, while in Utah
they slipped away.
I
want to think of you
there
within your beloved, broke-ass
apartment
somewhere above and surrounded
by
the tracks, down the street from George’s
Majestic
Lounge, reading that devoted
Schuyler,
listening to Van “the man,”
there
in grief and profound gratitude at
the
Dickson Street Bookshop when I stop through
or
peacefully chucking rocks with your kids
in
Wilson Park, writing my hometown
into
a small kingdom of poetry
in
lieu of that darkness, departing
towards
creation, a night that will never
end—whippoorwill
song, a celebration
for
ecstasy, memorializing
a
word to begin and make flesh
the
people we meet, a beautiful shore,
O—this
must be what they call glory
She is the editor of the anthology of critical essays: From the Word to the Place: The Work of Michael Anania (MadHat Press, 2022). She is an associate professor of English at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY and a native of Northwest Arkansas.
