I Hope My Funeral’s a Fucking Mess

I Hope My Funeral’s a Fucking Mess

Gnashing of grills in Atlanta
Renting of garments in Nawlins
When the news hits Phoenix 
They’ll lose a week
Telling the birds and the bees
You just wait till the storm hits the Windy City 
Lake Michigan’s gonna heave & ho when she hears 
I’m not coming home
I hope folks dress with a toddler’s grace & a teenager’s tact 
A mess of people in clashing shades of black
In fits when paint got on their good shoes 
Five summers back
Staring at sunsets from aisle seats 
Wondering why you’d even wear black 
For a soul with a kookaburra’s laugh
I hope my funeral’s a fucking mess.
I hope they forget to book a venue, a hearse 
The mortician is new, anxious, and nauseous
I hope it’s a shitshow.
I hope my pallbearers call out sick
Trip over thin air 
Fresh sod
No, dash my ashes down the aisle
Take a deep breath, take a piece of me home with you
I hope the eulogy is wandering, confusing, abrupt 
I hope the speakers are ineloquent and selfish
I hope it’s noisy and messy and fidgety and awful to sit through.
I hope my funeral’s a fucking mess.
I hope my funeral is packed with people unpracticed at grieving. 
Not like our big siblings, the quilt sewers.
I hope my loved ones are downright clumsy mourners.
I hope they don’t struggle to figure out what music to put on.
Bill Withers. I’m putting it in print here, now. Lean On Me, by Bill Withers.
But, I hope they know enough to dance.
By god, I hope they know enough to put on some Whitney & dance.
To get sunflowers
& rice — you’ll feed everybody, right?
The whole affair better smell like garlic
& ginger
& chlorophyll 
or I’m dragging my ass back.
You better keep each other fed, at least.