Without a Will
We had discussed death.
We both wanted to be cremated.
But what should be done with the remains.
I can’t hear you saying—Keep me in an urn,
dear. You’d never have said dear. Maybe
some of the remnants should be left
in the backyard of your childhood home,
perhaps a sprinkle at the college where we met.
And, of course, some here at our home
on the wooded lot you are so proud of,
even if I can count the number of trees
without using up all my digits. And then what remains?
I can’t take you back to Japan, to the
Normandy beaches or even to San Francisco
which we saw twice together; which you saw
once by yourself. There are too many flight
regulations of what you can carry on, on what
you can stow. How to explain handfuls of dust?
But what is left is something. It is flesh converted
to heat and ash, ash into soil or ocean and then
unseen bits of atoms or some other soul-like thing
that travels but is yet unnamed, a something that we
both had faith in because we had faith in a re-joining.
Jessie Carty's writing has appeared in publications such as The Main Street Rag, Iodine Poetry Journal and The HoustonLiterary Review. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks At the A & P Meridiem (Pudding House 2009) and The Wait of Atom (Folded Word 2009) as well as a full length poetry collection,Paper House (Folded Word 2010). Jessie is a freelance writer and writing coach. She is also the photographer and editor for Referential Magazine. |
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