The first time you died
I wanted to fill your grave
with artifacts from our union
too precious to live
above ground.
Treasures placed with you
to comfort me
when I imagined
the bareness of your cloth-wrapped
body
the unadorned pine box.
I was never the kind
to find peace in austerity.
The second time you died
there was more I wanted to give you
but no way to tuck my gifts in your coffin.
I placed an urn next to the bed
its mouth wide enough for
sorrows burnished silver
memories spooled with thin copper thread
regrets bronzed like shoes
the fading smell of our sheets
coins of dream fragments
conversations we never had
conversations we are still having.
Slowly I am accumulating
the bounty I need
to pay the Gods’ ransom
for safe passage
to the other side.
Here, above ground
where rain soaks the lawn
verdant and lush
tulips open to the April sun
then close under graveyard starlight.