In Camera
When the cancer worm finally bores through my heart, I will be ready to go. Or when that pillaging of tuberculosis completes its journey from toe nail to teeth shale, I’ll return my body to the State, in repose, or in situ, or however they need to arrange my clever frame. My last stand is my last stand-the ultimate breath I draw-before I wink at the attending physician and say, “technically, you lost this one.”
Open casket, sprung gasket. My body will be on display so all my girlfriends, slighted woman from the phases of my life, may beat on my chest and hurl insults as they desecrate my funeral tuxedo. Their husbands will awkwardly shift from foot to foot, watching for the first time it seems, the ones they love most, act so foolishly and passionately towards a body bored completely, irrevocably, many hours ago.
Neighborhood children form a queue outside the displaying area, patiently, with soiled ball caps and mischievous slingshots tucked into back pockets. Each one, “gee sir, a real bastard,” they’ll say before spitting onto my face and shoes, holding back just long enough for a summer fling to eek out her final lunge onto my chest before her finance pulls her off my lumpy frame.
The skylight to the funeral parlor opens specially that day, even though the window is inoperable, a solid pane of glass, but with a little ingenuity and a chainsaw the reviewing room is exposed to the elements of storm and light.
The town mayor mandates a full parade with local marching bands dueling for the title of most celebratory, most commensurate with the scale and solemnity of the loss, like a dirge song for a sinking ship possessed by ancient demons of Atlantis, slowing aching downwards back to the underground chamber from which it leaked.
Confetti mandatory, the sky will darken with rough paper. Frayed shards manage an ordered descent through the skylight, collecting and clumping on the spittle drying on my face and shoes, filing up my ears and nostrils, interfering with the arced strike of a lover who crossed my path many years ago while studying abroad in Rome.
Open casket, sprung gasket. My body will be on display so all my girlfriends, slighted woman from the phases of my life, may beat on my chest and hurl insults as they desecrate my funeral tuxedo. Their husbands will awkwardly shift from foot to foot, watching for the first time it seems, the ones they love most, act so foolishly and passionately towards a body bored completely, irrevocably, many hours ago.
Neighborhood children form a queue outside the displaying area, patiently, with soiled ball caps and mischievous slingshots tucked into back pockets. Each one, “gee sir, a real bastard,” they’ll say before spitting onto my face and shoes, holding back just long enough for a summer fling to eek out her final lunge onto my chest before her finance pulls her off my lumpy frame.
The skylight to the funeral parlor opens specially that day, even though the window is inoperable, a solid pane of glass, but with a little ingenuity and a chainsaw the reviewing room is exposed to the elements of storm and light.
The town mayor mandates a full parade with local marching bands dueling for the title of most celebratory, most commensurate with the scale and solemnity of the loss, like a dirge song for a sinking ship possessed by ancient demons of Atlantis, slowing aching downwards back to the underground chamber from which it leaked.
Confetti mandatory, the sky will darken with rough paper. Frayed shards manage an ordered descent through the skylight, collecting and clumping on the spittle drying on my face and shoes, filing up my ears and nostrils, interfering with the arced strike of a lover who crossed my path many years ago while studying abroad in Rome.