WHAT THE MORTICIAN SAID TO ME AS WE LOOKED AT MY GRANDMOTHER IN HER COFFIN

This shade of pink looks lovely on her lips. *
Her complexion is winter; she’s definitely a winter.
I put some rouge on her cheeks; your mother told me
Frances liked to wear rouge.
Isn’t this a beautiful blue dress?
I lined her lips a little.
Doesn’t she look younger?
Doesn’t she look just like herself, just like the photograph?

*After the funeral, at the Assisted Living Facility, on my grandmother’s dressing table, her lipstick, open, (almost the same color as the shade she wore in her coffin). The name on the base of the lipstick: carnation (the same flowers I laid on her gravestone earlier in the day).