If you are listening dear one, ear pressed
flush to the earth's cold chest, listening hard
like we spoke about, for the answers
of a madwoman long since gone
and far more stone than sea, listen dear,
for here the answers be:
There was always a crack, a leak
that left green streaks across the basement
of most days.
The calamity of family
and all the clacking sounds
their little mouths made
made me sick.
I tried, I tried,
but died a little every day I lived
as if I was unfit to breathe
the same air breathed by others,
smothered by the oxygen of God.
Degraded by the same old,
same old
daily grind and dirty
dishes piled higher
than my tallest daughter's eyes.
I'm telling you, a whore would never be so bored!
But I, the bread-knifed housewife, dried to sand,
half the woman other women were
a pint as glad.
I lied, I lied!
Thinking back upon it now,
on all the twisted knobs and limbs,
white ruffled knee socks, slacking.
A little headless doll.
A large man's longings.
My flaws a lot less awful now,
my witchy eyes less black with incantations.
I can't imagine smoking is allowed
but what I wouldn't give for one last puff!
My mouth hole all filled up
with Saintly smolder,
instead of this perversity of worms.
I died, I died!
When I was young,
flung toward some facsimile of slumber,
forced to conform to ordinary
corpse etiquette.
O, being dead is not what I expected.
A gift without wrapping;
a single bullet to the brow
or a toxic cocktail tipped quickly
toward a hopelessly open throat—how romantic
to fantasize the finality of it all. To be found
facedown in a plate of blackberry crepes
or spread-eagle on a bed of untended delphinium.
The hum of life, monotonous;
an incandescent light bulb's
subtle buzzing. Enough
to drive anyone to wonder,
why not nose dive in front of that there bus?
No fuss, no blood-soaked carpet, not a single
parting thought. Perfect
for the person who has everything.
No packaging required, no damn bow.
I. Fresh
The flesh is impeccable,
except for its lessening
temperature. Simple to mistake
for the living—unless you are a Dipteron.
II. Putrefaction
The body greens and swells, leaks
and loosens. Marbleized and blistered skin
will slip off if disturbed. It's certain
that some insects will feed well.
III. Black putrefaction
The carcass darkens, becomes
a larval carnival. The bones expose
themselves, like hapless flashers.
IV. Butyric fermentation
The organs all get eaten up
by greedy body-bugs. And the waxy
man that was becomes a mummy.
V. Dry decay
The bones go slowly;
grow protienless
then skeleton away.
K.R. Copeland is a frequently published Chigago area poet slash Pushcart nominee, with work recently appearing in Canary, Rosebud, and Soundzine. K.R. is the co-editor of Sea Stories, the online literary journal of the Blue Ocean Institute, and assistant art editor at The Centrifugal Eye.
"Confession from the SS Section of Forest Hills Cemetery" was previously published in Literary Burlesque. "To Give Oneself Death" was previously published in Shakespeare's Monkey Review.