His were the last hands to undress you. 
If there was any breath left, it spilled out 
onto his table. How I envied him, knowing 
he fixed your hair with the same fingers 
he offered me when we met, 
in his attempt at solace. 
We drank rich coffee at his desk. 
He wore a dirty tie. Was his skin cold? I asked. 
The words leapt out of me
before I could stop them. He nodded.

I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. 
I was in the bathtub. He disappeared 
while I was underwater.  
The Undertaker told me what he most likely 
tells everyone that sits at that desk: 
Misery moves like a sloth. 
Bliss is a cheetah.

I unzipped the garment bag
and pulled your slick navy suit
out of its envelope. The vents on the floor
started to whistle and howl.
A sudden burst of air came streaming 
from the metal gills
and shot straight up into the bottom holes 
of your pant legs– that indoor wind 
rocketed through the suit’s blue body–
until, all at once, the flat legs and arms 
had blow-up-dolled you back,
thick as life, swaying like a drunk,
side-to-side, headless.

Then as quick as it happened, 
it un-happened. I dropped the fabric, 
let it puddle onto the floor. 
What a melted-witch you had become. 
All your timber sunk under the rug. 
I too, deflated, said to the Undertaker: 
He was only mine for a moment. 
He’s all yours now.

Erica Miriam Fabri is a Brooklyn-based poet and the author of two books: Morphology (Write Bloody Publishing) and Dialect of a Skirt (Hanging Loose Press). Morphology was the winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Award and Dialect of a Skirt was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and included on the bestseller lists for Small Press Distribution and the Poetry Foundation. She teaches writing at Pace University and College of Staten Island. ericafabri.com