On Beholding the Beloved’s Rotting Body by Carlene Kucharczyk


 
 

I think it is beautiful that Emerson
dug his wife out of the grave
a year and two months after she died
just to see how she was making out.
Perhaps I would have liked to marry
Emerson. This is not the first time
I have thought this. I think I would do well
with a staunch moralist type. Unless
of course I disagreed, which I likely
often would. I do not really like
beards anyway. But now I am looking
at a picture of Emerson and it seems
he had less of a beard and more
of just weird facial hair. I do not know
what this particular type is called,
I do not like it either. Perhaps I was
thinking of Thoreau. I am always thinking
of Thoreau. But back to Emerson’s wife.
Maybe he thought she was caught
somewhere between the skeleton
and the soul. She was only twenty
years old. Who knows. I would not
mind. Find it all out. Dig if you have to.

 
 
 

Carlene Kucharczyk recently graduated from the MFA program at North Carolina State University, where she now teaches. She is originally from Connecticut.