Residuary

On the morning after my death

it will seem like any other day

where you will both wake and sleep

and some events between,

but I will not be here

to change the mop pad, or order

the coffee pods before we run out.

I will be waiting

under a fan of red gladiolus

in my one-day wooden overcoat

for my turn at the fire.

You will probably try to remember

passwords, and notice the bolt

come loose under the sink again.

Somewhere a hermit crab

will look for a new home, pink-

legged and antennae waving

into the vast undiscovered

parts of the ocean

that we know less about than

the surface of  Mars. In a poem,

Mars is always a metaphor for someplace

unexplored—the soul, or the soul’s

asylum.

I think about you under

the sink’s open maw, a phone

flashlight, searching for the source,

water finding its way

as water finds its way.