Autopsy: Poems

"Donte Collins’ Autopsy does the work you’d associate with its title, but instead of reflecting on the cause of death, it examines the effect. This collection cuts into the grief of losing a mother and looks at it from all sides, meditates on how that grief spreads to even the most unlikely places. How is a young, queer, black person allowed to mourn? In one poem, Collins translates “I love you” as “we can’t afford another funeral”; “I am here for you” becomes “I will like every status you post.”"