Preparing the Body for Resurrection

Andrew Hutto

A Memo to Employees of SACRED BURIAL®

Protection Against Rot, and Expertise in Religious Preservation

 

You must do the following as the Lord our God has commanded:

 

Tie a red ribbon around His wrist,

                              put snow in His ears.

Cover His mouth in vermillion lace.

Put a hubcap under His head so that He may rest.

Spray Drakkar Noir™ in between the toes.

 

               Wrap His cock in tin foil.

               Lay peonies across the collar bones.

 

Insert pebbles from the Sea of Galilee into the hole in His side.

 

Give Him a bandolier make of Christmas lights,

                                                            (there should be an outlet to the left of the bear’s den,

                                                            in the back of the cave.)

Position His right hand in salute.

 

Drape His chambers in party streamers and Charmeuse silk.

 

Put a subway token on the left eye, and a buffalo nickel on the right.

 

               Roll a red carpet from tombstone to Emmaus

 

Resist the urge to take flash photographs for this may cause

unnecessary degradation of the body which 

we so solemnly want to preserve. 

 

Lastly, before I thank you for your swift and urgent work,

remember to leave the crown of thorns untouched. 

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Andrew Hutto writes out of Louisville, KY. He was recently awarded third place in the 2020 Flo Gault Poetry Prize. In the summer of 2019, he served as a preliminary judge for the Louisville Literary Arts Writer's Block fiction prize. Presently he serves on the Pine Row Press editorial board. His work appears or is forthcoming in Thrush Poetry Journal, Eunoia Review, Plum Tree Tavern, Amethyst Review, The Weekly Degree, Barnhouse Journal, After the Pause, and Math Magazine.

Issue XVII