Instructions

Lay me not beneath a drop ceiling
or recessed lighting of any shade of pink.
Make sure there are no pamphlets nearby
or postcards with the little faces
of saints, or any gilded book to be signed.

You can lay my heart inside the birdcage
of an old willow, if it is autumn,
or if it could be arranged – a dogwood, a magnolia
if it’s the right time of year
and the petals are ready to fall in drifts across me.

Or maybe just somewhere where you can hear water,
a beach where the gulls stand silent on lightpoles
with the bay creeping up to the shore,
an inch at a time, like a crowd coming close
to mourn their fallen king.

Tell everyone – no one has to say a word,
nor must they be silent,
nor do they even have to show up at all –
the little waves of the bay will trip over themselves
to keep coming in, keep coming in,
keep coming in
and even if no one says the right words
or the wrong ones, it will still
all have happened, any how.

Mark Aiello