Mount Ontake

Hiromi Ito identified her husband’s body Thursday.
Japan Volcano Victims Leave Photos of Last Moments, ABC News, October 12, 2014.

Sifting through the chopsticks pick
the bones of the feet first and
the head last so the body
is not upside down in the urn
the horseshoe hyoid attached
to nothing living and dead
must be included

bathing in ash, my husband left
his obento uneaten and took snaps
of the sky moving from blue to grey
the first turning of the leaves
for me because I
had to work that day

I wish he had run
he must be hungry now
the handmade egg sandwiches
survived even though the lunch box
I put them in
cracked on the sides

vertebrae intact
hyoid in place
backpack fixed
skin puckered and cockled
organs vapourised
no chance to sweat
to grow sallow and stale
head facing north the sky
rushed in past his teeth
as if not fully grown.
how we forget the nakedness
of a curled dog’s lip.

his body arches.
how will he traverse
the bridge
when he is the bridge?
his canteen half full
touched his lips at least
diffused
his appetite perhaps
his thirst
not a distraction
for the crossing

Susan Laura Sullivan is a Western Australian writer currently living and teaching in Japan. She has work in Plumwood Mountain, Otoliths, Rat’s Ass Review and The Font: A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, among others. She was shortlisted for the 2012 T.A.G. Hungerford award for an unpublished novel.