This poem was rejected, but thats ok; it’s gonna get me into an MFA program. So who’s the real winner? (trick question, it’s the MFA program that’s going to get my free labor when I inevitably become an overworked and underpaid TA for freshman composition classes.)
Be-all
I know that death is not the end-all.
I eat desiccated daisy heads, seeds and all,
so they’ll sprout from my decaying body.
Thinking preemptively,
I prune bits of skin from my stomach and breast
so the buds have a place to grow through
unobstructed—my own little ritual
to prepare for eternal life.
I lie down in a garden cathedral
as if to sleep—like I did in childhood
before the new growth took my mind—
the fallen forest pews
and tabernacle sit behind me,
a crooked stump, man-cut,
from which a bit of frail green is growing.
I wonder who else has lain down here before me,
after swallowing pinecones or maple or elm seeds,
and if their tree-life was cut too short, like mine,
and if that meager sprout is enough of a remembrance.
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