Meeting

After Wendell Berry

I had already done

this, the elegy

when my friend’s

family spread his

ashes like salt

on cantaloupe slices

in the summers

on his porch

in the woods.

I had had

the dream meetings,

seen the sham resurrections

and yet, he still comes,

alive,

all a mistake,

a clerical error,

too many zeros,

too few.

Chris Cocca writes: “My fiction, essays, and poetry have been published at venues including Hobart, Creative Nonfiction, Pindeldyboz, elimae, Thieves Jargon, Generate, Geeze, The Huffington Post, Boston Literary Review, The Bangalore Review, O:JAL, The Ursinus College Lantern, and more.  I won the Creager Prize for Creative Writing at Ursinus College and am a graduate of Ursinus College, Yale University, and The New School (MFA, creative writing).”