Requiem

© 2003 Prescilla Rhoades
All rights reserved.

Find a Mason jar. Fill it with three drops of blood the color of roses,
an ounce of excrement, a tuft of pubic hair, salt, bone-dust,
a single black tear. Seal this with hot wax and wait. Winter is coming.

Notify the next of kin. Have him carry your eyes
in his pocket like old pennies
and rub them sometimes, just for luck. If he's clever on Sunday
when the offering plate is passed, he'll know what to do.

Keep your breath on the window, a hair in the keyhole, your gold
tooth slipped under the door.
No one will remember you, but you don't know that yet.

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