What must it be like to burn in hell forever surely no worse than what Uncle Cecil suffered

Sizzling by the the side of the road for an hour one must get used to it after a kalpa or two

My mother was the only one who could stand it staying at his bedside days on end in the burn unit

No one ever claimed that Cecil was lucky in love or otherwise, though he was handsome

(Uncle Leonard claimed his droit de seigneur over his little brother’s wife, as he had done all his life

Injecting the drama of his DNA into the irony of niece Victoria’s name)

Where now was Cecil’s lily-white skin? crisp as salmon’s where now was his coal-black hair? sooty pompadour

His own mother could not stomach the sweet meaty smell while mine brought it home for us to savor

Her spring dresses infused with the cloy of charred flesh was it weeks or just days before he was released

By death? The closed casket funeral was brief mourners hid their faces behind handkerchiefs

Protection from the bad luck odor that seeped through polished mahogany and ashen memory

The odor of burnt conscience and incense the incense of burnt bridges and intents

The awkward preacher hoped this was not a preview of what Cecil, deceased, had to look forward to.