The Hamlet Project

Betty told me a story about a suit, sent through the mail.
It was a suit for her husband, I think.
He was working in Burma.
She sent it from England and somehow
This suit
Traveled around the world
Through the post and she couldn’t get it back
Nor could she get it to him.
The suit became as well traveled as the Italian woman
Who sent it and the Eritrean man for whom it was intended.
She told me this story
When I first moved to England
Before her husband died there in Burma
Before she had to fight to get his body returned to her in England
Before the sending and receiving Became the nightmare that it became.
This was before his coffin finally made its way to Heathrow
Before it pulled up in front of her house
Before the choir of women wailed behind the hearse,
Making the most heartbreaking sound.
This was before he found his final resting place
In the ground of his native Eritrea.
I wish I could remember the story of the suit more clearly.
I wish I could remember where it ended up
How it finished its journey.