THREE THINGS
I want no tombstone.
Bury me near the fence
close to my friends
under the red leaf tree
not in the Catholic section
where thawed ground collapses.
Don’t hold me down
with some monument.
Sing something sweet.
I’ll listen near the fence.
—from Rattle #57, Fall 2017
__________
Jim Hanlen: “What you want and what you get can be an unwanted tombstone on top of you. My mother-in-law is resting far from her friends in the pioneer plot. Sometimes, no one asks the poet or sometimes they’ll just say the poet got it wrong.”
