Congregations forget.

Entered into "The dance known as death" contest.

Welcome to my funeral.

The ladies are draped
In raven-feathers
Though I've asked for a dove's
Down to mood-match.

Ink trails south across the window
Pane: cheeks embracing sorrow,
This story ending

"Much too soon," per the eulogy.
The pastor pardons my sins
With happy-moment-highlights,
Though I fell from blood-cross
Principles like I did those stairs;

I found the elevator—a shortcut
Straight to hell or outer darkness
Or oblivion
Or perhaps the heaven I thought
We all had, regardless of finger counting
Those commandments as accomplishments.

I'm at eleven, peering down:

The men are holding back
As usual, though I've preached frailty
Like the mascara-novels dripping from
Their wife-and-daughters' cheeks;
I'm sick of New York Times' happy endings.

A picture sits—crooked—by my casket:
A jolly picture with recess-dimples
On rolling hills above a crag of double chins.
"Please, burn all of them upon my death."

Must be omitted from my Will; I am
monotone like the background music
Of sob-crescendos and the heavy grinding
Of jaws and filling-stained teeth:

The apple-mouth pig is prepped on the table
Between the stir-fry and beef egg rolls
For the after-service luncheon in "my honor,"
Though I've been vegetarian

And a heavy water drinker; everyone's drunk
Off the sick burn of soda
And pseudo-juices—the children sway
Without a care in the back with a ball.

By the corner, the guest book is filled
With hurried signatures: autographs—
Past times people cling to like tissue boxes.

I'm a celebrity-for-a-week,
Obsessed with the thick gloss
Of formaldehyde-skin and the stiff suits
I've always hated wearing.

Author's Note

I wonder if people truly remember the dead at funerals.