Closure by Sarp Sozdinler

CLOSURE

Let’s imagine your ashes getting peppered 
with marijuana and smoked all night long, 
an unburnt piece of your spine 
feeling lucky to see the light of day, 
me unrolling the lid of your urn 
and feeding you to the black waters, 
the depths sucking your remains almost instantly, 
the wind swatting away your few airborne particles, 
your conscious parts still aching in the teeth of nature, 
your ego crumbling to fish food in the belly of a great white whale, 
the lines on your snaky face turning to butterfly shit 
as the sun cowers behind the clouds like an ashamed god 
spying on her creation from a healthy distance. 

Let’s imagine your ashes infecting the bowels of this Earth 
to the point of no return, the memory of you 
poisoning more people by the second, your absence 
making wives lonelier than ever, 
and scarring daughters for life. 

Let’s imagine them all turning into maggots 
because of you and getting gobbled up 
by a free-roaming chicken, their digested selves 
finding their place on a dinner table, 
their puréed leftovers tossed into a garbage bin, 
the garbage bin thrown into a compactor 
and rocketed into space in smoke and fire. 

Let’s imagine the planets realigning 
to avoid your presence, the stars 
refusing to illuminate your soulfire, 
and the void spitting you back home 
in meteoric spades, earth to earth, 
ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 

Let’s imagine us looking back 
at what’s left of our world 
and remembering all about you. 

Let’s imagine us cussing. 

A writer of Turkish descent, Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, Trampset, Vestal Review, DIAGRAM, Normal School, Lost Balloon, and Maudlin House, among other journals. His stories have been selected and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, and Wigleaf Top 50. He's currently at work on his first novel in Philadelphia and Amsterdam.