If They Hand Your Remains to Your Sister in a Chinese Takeout Box

Jamaal May

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Think first, of the environment.
Ceramics are not biodegradable
so if you want to be buried
in the plot with your estranged wife,
an urn won't do. You need to feed the worms,
play your role in nurturing soil
and lift trees into the sky.


If your obituary is scrawled on notebook paper,
ripped out and photocopied, rigid
edges and all. If the lines
still show through, faint
like soap scum collected on the mirror
above the sink you were found slumped under.
If your girlfriend only showed up to your motel room
to find you after a three week absence
because your check came on the first.


If they hand your remains to your sister
in a Chinese takeout box.
Take solace in the laughter
of your niece. Take
solace in the fact
that you've torn a liquor-stenched wound down the center
of this family and for once
it won't be mentioned as they gather.
Take solace
because the bag that carried you to the cemetery
will not go into the ground with you.
It will instead spend decades holding hands
with a breeze, wandering around a landfill somewhere
repeating in bold red font,

THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU

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