So last night in bed I was thinking about Elizabeth Flynn’s “After Grave Deliberations …” (posted yesterday). I was thinking it would be better if she hadn’t made the body she sent God so literal. She wants the “ashes slipped into / an 8 x 10 manila envelope” … then when the Divine poetry editor decides, nope, not for us, back she will be returned to herself, presumably to live another life, or something. Something other than death, yes? This reading is made more difficult by the literalness of the ashes, the already destroyed body. How does that live on “elsewhere”?
Maybe if the body was more metaphorical to begin with, as in:
When my life is finished
I shall fold it twice,
join it with a cover letter
and an envelope, stamped & self-addressed,
and send them together, sealed with one wet kiss
to God in His capacity, etc.
Then when God rejects this submission, sending it back to be offered elsewhere, the reader’s imagination wouldn’t have to deal with a gritty bunch of cremains.
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