After Death

I do not wish to be cremated.

To be lodged in an urn shaped like the moon

with a face on it is not for me.

I do not want a golden coffin.

I wish to be looking at the world in a plain box

and when I am lowered down

among the leaves and dirt that never drifts

I do not wish to become a flower.

I do not want them to look upon me

or to be reincarnated like a god or a star.

I do not wish to be buried at sea

to become that.

In my dreams I am not to be

something of terrified beauty.

What I have in my head is more particular.

Warmed by the night of a dusty tomb

the graveyard will confront me.

Let me have my despair.

Let me hover about the dark flowers.

This is what I sought after all, let them have their sarcophagus.

I do not want to be reincarnated as a butterfly as so many do,

but a black moth.