1.
There will be no reason to keep calendars, though some were pretty, each day renewing
into quarter moon or full, or the mouths of trumpet flowers in their demise.
She would like to be buried in a simple white chemise, the dead woman requests.
No one will think of this day as unusual, no need to find a password for anything.
No need to find out what happened on this day in history, that is, someone cleverly invented paper
sandwich bags one could crayon and turn into a mask.
She would like a white slip because is doesn't give off any flames.
She wants a paper sack because the opening can be fashioned like a mouth.
And besides, one can write on it!
In lieu of flowers, the dead woman would like as many fine tip pens of varied colors
as possible.
In lieu of tears, the dead woman requests a labor of words: she clung to the bars and cages
of words, the rods and pistons of a line, the dead evening's wake of words, the scattered clothing
no longer modifying the dead, just the living tongue.
By jiminy, she got it.
2.
What to do with those advent calendars, the dead woman wonders, with the pockets opening to be
filled with an owl or to-morrow, a shepherd's staff rigid as a public statue,
a bar of soap or a snow cloud.
The weather made time irrelevant, especially when waiting alone.
The dead woman wonders if she will sigh at words, wake to words, think about words
while lying alone.
If there's an afterlife, it will be a word--like the moon--renewing.