Thanatosis
Rigor mortis sets in from the jaw,
the first joint to stiffen in the law
of the postmortem, the muscles locking down
in the calcium flood, the body turned to stone.
The eyelids will not close. The hands are fists.
The knees are locked and the forensic lists
note the time by the stiffening, the clock
written in the rigor of the biological lock.
Livor mortis follows: the blood pools at the lowest point,
the gravity of death coloring every joint
that sits below the center line, the lividity
a purple map of the position and the rigidity.
The skin goes slack after the rigor passes through,
the muscles softening again but this time into something new,
a laxity that nothing living has, a looseness born
of every protein in the body being torn
apart by the enzymes that no longer have a leash.
The body after death performs its final act,
the stiffening, the discoloring, the matter-of-fact
procedure of the shutting down, methodical and slow,
and the thanatosis is the body’s curtain call, the show.
He looked like he was sleeping.
That is what they always say.
He was not sleeping.
He was stiff as lumber and the color of a bruise.