December 22, 2017

Jim Hanlen

THREE THINGS

I want no tombstone.
Bury me near the fence

close to my friends
under the red leaf tree

not in the Catholic section
where thawed ground collapses.

Don’t hold me down
with some monument.

Sing something sweet.
I’ll listen near the fence.

from Rattle #57, Fall 2017

__________

Jim Hanlen: “What you want and what you get can be an unwanted tombstone on top of you. My mother-in-law is resting far from her friends in the pioneer plot. Sometimes, no one asks the poet or sometimes they’ll just say the poet got it wrong.”

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