His Corpse Was Beautiful

Dominic Adam Dixon
(January 30, 1990–August 28, 2011)

Locks like still rows of wheat.
Skin, rich, even, like mud pies
kids pat out with stubby,
uncoordinated fingers & palms.
His nose, unsunk & prominent
like a lynching tree
whose limbs decline to
fail under a body’s worth
of weight. Those lips, darkened,
full as the smoke which rose
slow from them, wrapped
itself into the sky. The suit—
I hated the suit; it was far too still
for a resting person. No one
sleeps in suits. Or boxes.