Mackenzie Hyatt

Elegy

When does it get easier to hold the scaffolding of someone’s being, now brittle, leaving dust in the creases of my living hands?

Once in constant renovation, these structures were pulled by muscle, cooperating in such perfect harmony as to allow you to lift a glass to your skull, to drink, and place it back down again with divine effortlessness.

Who am I to touch these little mountains and valleys, when you, in life, could never? I call your most intimate topographies by their Latin names and sigh, Local Osiris, when I discover that you have a piece missing.

I am not a priest. I am not a monk. I ask you for permission, though I don’t think you’ll answer. I greet you and I know you won’t wave back. I do not believe in ghosts, but I like to sing so that you might hear me.