Funerary Instructions

Bury me below a cactus 'neath the studded Western sky

Spiny, but thrifty with water, and vulnerable in its own way

Bury the steel ‘neath my plump, red flesh

And my soul into this precious prairie dust

Mama Time and her long con will parch my carnal self

So in the pews I kept the sustenance of the hour

But, being a godly man, I broke this bread with the county parson

And he told me of God as the tourniquet loosened from his bicep

His wife made us dinner and we did not eat

We drank coca-cola on the porch and watched the moon appear

I laughed when his arm bled, and called it stigmata

He coughed and vomited on my shoes

“My wife will wash them” he sighed and went off to bed

I walked through the trees far and away

Wishing i would tire myself into oblivion

And waded into a river in a clearing in a wood unknown