My Colleague Dies during Covid

The email says that they don’t have
any other contact information for her,
that there won’t be a funeral,
that there’s no address to send flowers.

“I wonder if anyone has a photo to help
us put a face with the name,” somebody
writes in the thread.

But what is a face in an age of masks?
What is a name?

*

A Poem Is a Grave

marked by words.

You have to dig deep
to find its bones.

You have to bury
yourself in it.

*

Destroy Unread

I heard that the famous novelist
wrote this on one of his notebooks
before he died.

I guess it’s only natural
to want to sanction the narrative of your life
after you’ve gone,
especially if you’re a writer.

When my father died,
he left no instructions
for a literary executor,
much less for a grieving son.

*

Clint Margrave is the author of the novel Lying Bastard (Run Amok Books, 2020), and the poetry collections, Salute the Wreckage, The Early Death of Men, and Visitor (Forthcoming) all from NYQ Books. His work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Rattle, and The Moth, among others.