My apartment is full. Crudité and cheese platters clutter the coffee table, all available chairs sag with grief. My error circulates and people laugh quietly—who knew? To be encrypted above ground, my grandfather’s casket must be metal, not wood. Tomorrow the funeral home will have to enclose the mahogany in a metal sheath. My sister-in-law approaches, whispering behind her wineglass, “You have blood on you.” She glances at my ass. I return to my bedroom to change, contain the miscarriage no one knows I am having, and worry about the casket, the vessel, and the wrongness of it all.
Christina Kapp lives in New Jersey and her writing has appeared in Gargoyle, Wildness, and Five Minutes. www.christinakapp.com Facebook: Christina Kapp Instagram: @christinakapp_