Every Part of the Animal (Non-elegy)
BY RINA PERLIN
When I go,
don’t make my bones
dry-cakes or root bulbs.
Don’t hold onto them
as if they can press you coldly,
or kiss you brittle, or tell you how
and that all this was true.
Do not tell them you love them.
When I go, buy roses
for yourself
and break out every drop
of vino tinto.
Knock down my door,
and seek out any someone
who needs box of pins; Greek Palace
matchbook; songs written for wizards
by a twelve-year-old; relief.
Stamp my feet
with for the mind
and ship me gone, gone
where I can do more than
fertilize.
Make me a canvas
for queasy dreamers,
a ship of tendons, nerve
ganglia. Make me
surgical, eternal.
And if you need
a bundle of me, in charred
humanity, to sleep by you,
You may have my left eye
and the first of every Fall.