To Marie Antoinette, from a Woman Who Prefers Cremation
Kelly R. Samuels
My friends and I would hang
in the cemetery with all the old stones
toppling, thinking we were cool, talking of peace
and quiet. Later, I sometimes walked the one
between the marsh and a worn road and once startled
a fox busy at rooting. There were stories and green
and occasional bursts of color that came from
fake flowers, sure. But not what I wanted
in the long run, for the long haul – dust to
dust just fine.
Your head and body lay on the ground
while the grave diggers had lunch. I imagine
rye bread, a sharp crumbly cheese. And a swig
of, because why not? It was October, so there
must have been leaves with their wet rotting smell.
Better to be shaken out along a shore of a sea
you never set eyes on. Little bits of bone
sinking.
Kelly R. Samuels is a Best of the Net and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, as well as the author of two chapbooks: Words Some of Us Rarely Use (Unsolicited) and Zeena/Zenobia Speaks (Finishing Line). Her poems have recently appeared in RHINO, Cold Mountain Review, DMQ Review, The Pinch, and Quiddity. She lives in the Upper Midwest.