Tim J Brennan
What Remains
In some regions of China,
a reputation is considered
proportional to the number
of guests who attend a funeral;
strippers are often hired
to pull crowds
In Madagascar, the dead
are often pulled from graves
and carried about, body danced
above attendees, once
every seven years
Stone ground in Tibet
makes burial impossible,
so the dead are chopped,
mixed with flour and left
to be eaten by scavenging birds
My own father is stored
in a porcelain urn; at the funeral,
I suppressed an urge to pilfer
some of his ashes for fear
of not knowing which body part
was being placed into my hand or
being smudged beneath my fingerprints
Tim J Brennan’s poems can be found in Talking Stick, Drowning in My Own Fears, TheOriginalVanGoghsEarAnthology, and other nice places. Brennan’s one act plays have been performed in Bethesda, San Diego, Chicago, and most recently in Bloomington, ILL.