Donna Dallas

Death Collective

Line my coffin with
the butter-yellow Austrians
from our beach cottage
bedroom with
that cathedral ceiling we loved
to stare up into
forever
Pull some Venetian prisms
off the hundred year old
chandelier that flickered sun-holes
onto us from the window and make
earrings out of them for me please
You can lay me into a mahogany casket
with my black Chanel
the one we bought
on Place Vendome
in the midst of a rain so heavy
it was God upon us
Slip my Louboutins on feet
hard as stone
bend the toes so my arch is angled to the shape
of that divine heel
don’t put a ton of makeup on me
I don’t want to look garish
at the wake and scare away
the handful of viewers goggling
over my long and broken body
Burn me after
light me up
howl at the fire
I smolder and catapult up the shaft
in a whirlwind of smoke and ash
Finger through the soot
to find a nail
or a piece of a tooth
perhaps a bit of hair
save it
love it
it was me you bastard

Originally published in Literary Orphans