Bright yellow backhoe, mechanized monster
stark and out of place amongst the soft green grass,
fresh brown dirt, rows of greyish gravestones.
An uninvited guest amongst the covid-limited graveside souls.
How undignified – there should be
more soft green grass, and flowers!
where this giant creature stands
blocking the view of, well, more greyish gravestones.
But I will turn dirt from heap to hole-in-ground for hours
if it means I can erase the ugly truck
from the memory of the ceremony.
Tall pile, sure, but not impossible?
everything always simultaneously im/possible in grief.
The truck has already dug your bed, another machine slowly lowers you into it.
Our human hands lift and turn a few hundred shovels-full of soil
two at time, six feet apart from each other, six feet away from you,
then watch the bright yellow claw finishing our act of service
carefully brushing layer by layer from the mound of earth
so gracefully I know it is the hand of Godde
gently covering you in a soft heavy blanket.
freygl gertsovski is a queer, nonbinary, multiply-crip, white, first-generation settler Jewitch whose people are Ashkenazy from present-day Moldova. fae is a writer, multi-disciplinary artist, crafter, and community organizer living, dreaming, working, co-creating, praying, and healing in Tkarón:to (toronto).
Nevermore Journal 