Clare Chodos-Irvine - burn my body

burn my body

roast my effigy seven times, douse me in water, pick the remains of my paper self out of the

ashes 

do not put me in the ground 

there isn’t enough real estate, too many wooden boxes

  on top of each other

fingers pushing desperately out of the ground,            

pushing

up gravestones, piling up 

there’s a body in that box

i did not know how heavy a life is.

burn my body in the way i’m not supposed to be

cremate me, burn my fingers and my thighs,

whatever dress I loved most 

burn it all 

release me into the sea, let me be eaten,

let me find my grandmother there—

we’ll meet in the mariana trench with the plastic bottles 

and the things that glow.