SHEETS Poem by Jan Wagner

grandfather was embalmed in his
and carried out, and i

discovered him one year

later when we changed the beds -
shrivelled to a wasp, tiny
pharaoh of a long-gone summer.

sheets were folded by spreading
your arms to mirror your opposite
across their taut expanse. then
came the laundry foxtrot: each
rectangle swallowed by its half,
our noses nearly touching.

anything could be hidden
in their snowy hearts: an empty
vial containing a ghost of perfume,
lavender blossoms or meadow
flowers, a penny, the odd

clutch of mothballs in their nest.

but now they slumbered, mute
and white in their cupboards, great

piles of them, steeped in fragrance,
mangled, ironed and starched,

as scrupulously stacked as parachutes
before a jump from undreamt-of heights.