OSSUARY

In Havana, families unearth their dead,

Taking their bones, after a few years, to a smaller container,

then placing it in a niche, shoulder to shoulder with the bones of others.

Everything else disintegrates.

My father tells me about the practice

and does not find it odd or alarming

when he recalls the family trips to the graveyard

to complete this necessary task of transference,

when he recalls seeing his grandparents and other relatives reduced thus.

In Miami, months and months into a pandemic that so many say has ended,

after this virus has claimed 1 million dead,

plus another I-don’t-know-how-many dead

from ancillary causes such as loneliness, grief,

depression exacerbated by isolation

—I count my mother among this last group—

I sit with a friend to discuss the practice of disinterment.

I show him pictures of my paternal grandmother’s ossuary in Havana,

a rectangular plaque small enough to frame,

the size of a fire-proof box you’d use to store your passport

and other important documents,

like a naturalization certificate if you were born in a country like Cuba

but now reside in the U.S.

We wonder about burial shrouds

and whether these disintegrate at the same rate as everything else,

whether these are even used anymore,

would you take it home and keep it if it’s all that is left

besides the bones when the time comes?

A week later, I visit my mother’s grave and think

I am relieved I do not have to move or touch her bones,

although the thought of never touching her again at all

is another kind of pain.

Anna Kushner has published her poetry, essays, fiction, and creative nonfiction in The Acentos Review, Asymptote Journal, Crab Orchard Review, Ep;phany, Newtown Literary, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. She has also published several book-length translations from Spanish, French, and Portuguese.