There are no records or photographs
but mourners lined blocks to visit.
Some waited hours
but couldn’t say
to whom they were paying respects,
almost as though the longer they waited,
the more a mass amnesia set in.

Conspiracy theorists
claimed the coffin was empty:
it was all a hoax,
to cover up a cover up
or rig an election,
but conspiracy is hardly the point.

Let’s say people
lined up to visit an empty coffin.
Shouldn’t we be weeping for that?