This is my poem without words
        my poem of images enrobed in
    oppressive silence like the
        pressing of a Salem witch
    who is really just a girl in tears
   and a bonnet:
You asked what I would do
    if you died and I said
  "I would have you cremated and
   I would have your ashes,
    at least a bit of them, mixed
         into a bit of red glass
    fashioned into a heart-shaped
  kiss and
   I would wear it around my neck
        on a silver silk chord . . .
             a silver silk chord . . .
             except when I venture out on
              a date with a familiar stranger
            because you will not
                                              have been introduced and
               the rest of you
   I would sprinkle here and
        there to haunt the old brick
buildings I love and the sharp angry
mountains you love and
                              here and
        there to feed the verdant
grasses our toes haven't ever moved."
    You raised an eyebrow
        askance, saying,
  "You've thought about this quite
     a bit,"
but this is a lie I let you hold
    a pork bun of a brown bird with a
        backward-bent wing
which you rest in a wooden puzzle box
  wrapped in a velvet pouch
    sewn into a heart-shaped pillow
      locked in a three-sided room
and on the ceiling
   a hand-painted truth:
        I never thought the choice would
  **be mine.