A Vow

I pledge to sit upright in my coffin

as soon as the morgue-ice melts, and turn

a cheek grayer than this dusk. Kiss it

even if it doesn’t remind you of yesterday,

but let your tact disregard the breath

of a corpse mingled with the musk

you emptied on my breast. The belched outrage

from a belly domed in gas is simply

my way of saying, “Honey, I’m home.”

The carrion fly counting the fibers

in my nose is no heavenly harbinger.

Discount it as you’d discount a bird

on a cliché and fear nothing for there’s nothing

left to fear. Darling, I’m in no hurry.

Take your time in bringing me a rose

of that pinot we once praised to the sky

and let my tongue gad about in a warm

crimson bay. I swear to lie back forever

when the stylus roundly vexes a scratch

in our nuptial song, and it all begins again.