there is nothing left
of your body
except ashes in an urn
on a mantel
not my urn
not my mantel
I have nothing left of you
only a few photographs
digitized before
my house flooded
& the Polaroids turned
to slurry, your face
blurred & running
—the next day we
scooped them up
with shovels & tossed them
in the industrial dumpster
parked in the driveway
oh I am sorry
all I could save was
wrapping paper & the To: Steve
From: Becky tag
on an overlooked Xmas gift,
a tie we found at the back
of your closet two years after
when we could just
about bear to donate your clothes
the ones that stopped
fitting as the chemo ate
your flesh the way
one eats a salmon from a holiday platter & leaves
its outline in bones
Steve Bellin-Oka earned his M.F.A. from the University of Virginia and his Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers. He is the author of a chapbook, Dead Letter Office at North Atlantic Station (Seven Kitchens Press, 2017). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, Nimrod International Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and Valparaiso Poetry Review, among others. He has been a finalist for the Tomaz Salamun Prize, the Autumn House Press First Book Award, and the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award, among other honors. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. He lives in Portales, New Mexico and teaches at Eastern New Mexico University.