How to Drop Dead Gorgeous

A found poem using excerpts from “Black AfterLives Matter” by Ruha Benjamin in The Boston Review and Willing Up and Keeling Over: a Lesbian Handbook on Death Rights and Rituals by Sinister Wisdom’s Long Breast Press Collective.

Step One:

Death changes appearance; some may be hesitant to view a dead body. Look as near as you did in life; it’s often a comfort your beloveds know you’re dressed in a way that is familiar.

Step Two:

You must be formally identified so your loved ones can register your death. The more essential information you can record beforehand, the better. Or else everyone else falls behind on the prime legal rights to claim your body. Regardless of who claims you, same as your birth certificate, your death certificate shows you are owned by the government. 1

Your body may be buried or cremated before the death certificate is issued. There is a fee involved in obtaining it, and there is no discount for multiple issues. 2

Step Three:

Saying goodbye is so important people need to know what you’ll wear and where you’ll be as it takes place! 3

Prices for gravesites vary. Country cemeteries are less expensive than city cemeteries. Any respectable funeral director can organize this for you.

Step Four:

Your loved ones will have a useful menu of the feelings a grieving person may feel. 4

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1 Blackness is being born under a mountain of racial debt. Racial debt is not only a product of Black death, but also its precursor.

2 Black life is expensive, sure, but so is Black death.

3 Kinship with the dead has its own demand and effects.

Maya Williams (ey/they/she) is a religious Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who served as Portland, Maine’s poet laureate from 2021 to 2024. Follow more of eir work at mayawilliamspoet.com.