Those Who Should Have Loved Me

Because I do not see death as beautiful

or as some new-spangled beginning

in which, relieved of bodily cares

we somehow still retain our selves

attached to some fleet and aiery

set of wings,or otherwise broiling

in endless blue plumes,

I want rivers of tears at my funeral

from those who should have loved me.

Let is be said that I was flawed,

a bottomless pit of need, an Icarus

who loved a few too many suns,

that were was something essentially

displeasing in my taking up of space.

View the casket as a blessing then

yet wail as though I hear you

through its wooden walls.

Play that song by Leonard Cohen

(who, if he'd have me I'd decay

forever near): Dance me to the End of Love.

Then, Air on a G String,

to which I walked across a moonlit

patio to betroth my beloved;

after this, Albinoni's Adagio,

so rich in beginnings and finality,

and close with Try to Remember

so my husband will recall that

life once was sweet as muscadines in Fall.

Speak no words you would not utter

while yet I breathed; speak mainly music;

oh, remember how I adored it so,

as well as all of you who somehow

found me unworthy until now

still and stolid as a tomb

silent, no longer chasing sunflares

undertaking nothing,

except to help the flowers bloom.

Copyright Julianza Shavin 2008