This appears in a pre-2010 issue
of cc&d magazine.
Saddle-stitched issues are no longer
printed, but you can requesting it
“re-released” through amazon sale
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Memories of his Dead Japanese Wife in a Cardboard Box
James Sackett
He held a box of ash,
it should have been an urn,
but he remembers her in terms
of weight and grief.
He had made her a cardboard
coffin, and thought his struggle
to hold the dulling corners had
something to do with his dead wife.
A woman who he is reminded by
half-moonlit nights and slumbering
horses. He holds her ashes
with pale, bloodless arms, his
white knuckles stress to finger
the edges of this woman, who rests
dead and empty in the weight
of this heavy box against his chest.
