In Los Angeles
lowered emission standards allow
for hundreds
of embalmed bodies queued up
waiting
for someone to press a red switch
sending
a cargo of wooden boxes
into a dumbwaiter
families
who said good-bye
through a glass window
a double pane
palm to palm
the cremation of a nation
along a single COVID track
pushed through a turnstile
rising
from crumbled ashes
to ashes
shaking
wearied singed feathers.