Formaldehyde

The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:

The central conceit of this poem is grief confronting a body that is no longer the person it belonged to, and the title "Formaldehyde" does a great deal of work before the first line even arrives. It frames the sensory logic that follows, particularly the strong stanza built around smell: "Preserved / That what he smells like / The smell used to prevent rot." That is the poem's most successful moment, because it lets an abstract feeling of wrongness land as something physical and specific. Preservation, which should be a comfort, becomes the very evidence of loss. That irony is the poem's strongest thread and could be trusted to carry more of the weight.

The imagery of transformation is also doing real work. "melted into a wax figure / that hardened into leather" tracks a change in texture that maps convincingly onto a body after death, and "the kiss / of his rubber hand" extends that same tactile discomfort. These moments succeed because they stay concrete; the poem is most alive when it touches, smells, and recoils rather than when it names the feeling directly.

By contrast, the more abstract passages tend to tell rather than show. The repeated "I feel as he feels / Wrong" and "Something's not right" state the emotion the images are already producing, which can dilute their force. Consider whether the poem needs those declarations at all, or whether the wax and the smell of formaldehyde can be left to say "wrong" on their own.

The closing sequence of questions—"Can a shell not also be the same thing as a cage? / A prison? / A tomb?"—reaches for a big resolution, but the piling of near-synonyms lets the intensity level off rather than build. One well-chosen image here would likely cut deeper than three abstractions in a row. The line "A body that was once his / but now isn't" is closer to the plain, unsettling register the poem does best, and might make a stronger ending than the questions that precede it.

A few small mechanical slips work against the poem's control: "use to" for "used to," "I try not to wretch" for "retch," "How do describe," and "Letting the site fill my lungs," where "sight" seems intended. Because these appear in the more emotionally charged passages, they can pull a reader out at the exact moments the poem wants to hold them. A close proofreading pass would protect the imagery that has been built so carefully.

One line to reconsider is "the most beautiful thing in the world," which leans on a general superlative in a poem that otherwise earns its effects through precise, strange detail. A specific remembered image of him would likely do more than the abstraction, and would sharpen the contrast with the "shell" that follows.

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 my review/comments before I had read your last remarks, and I then had to go back and rewrite the whole thing, [mostly]. I did get it right that it was a funeral/wake, and upon that discovery; saw more clearly, the reference to the 
"rubber hand" and the revulsion. I'm not entirely sure that I understand the mocking of the grief on one's lips. I might use the word [echo] instead. I would maybe try:

As it echoes the grief on my lips.

A supremely agonizing tale, I am so sorry for your loss, please accept my condolences. Welcome to Neopoet, we hope that your membership here, will help you to express your grief and the joy of finding that for every ending, there will be a new beginning. ~ Geezer.