Still Life with Vase

I often wonder what the investigator
will say about my body after it's found
how he will lift my hair with his pencil
searching for the entry wound noting how fragile
and worn my bangs are from cheap bleach

and the coroner once I am on the metal bed
still in its steel arms
she will perhaps record the bloom of
bacteria on my molars calculate
the faulty brushwork

she will take her calipers to the white
flesh of my sides measure how the rings
of fat encircle me like the belts of Saturn

and then she will weigh my liver swollen
with doctors' faulty interventions
the seat of my anger bile bubbling out
even when the air is dead in me

they will poke and explore
these slim-fingered bodysnatchers the
clockwork of my vessels
the chainlink fence of my lungs

perhaps I am shot stabbed and burned but
I think it is more likely an accident someone
fell somewhere a car swerved to avoid a goose
a bottle thrown out a window by a child
who likes to hear
smash

I think it will be a glass vase old and not
too valuable holding irises just spoiled
that shatters in the next room and
a sliver will fly
arrow to my heart

and I will think about the incredible
dust as I stare at the cobwebbed beams above
my back to the carpet faint smell of mold

everything suddenly still and rushed
and as the room yellows and then
yellows again I will be sad that I

didn't kiss you long enough that morning
kiss you until you grunted

when the coroner finally comes to wiegh
my heart she will find it enlarged she will
speak of an extra 2 ounces to the man holding
a plateful of my intestines beside her

and this because of that day when we sat
out on the bench by the river
and stared at each other
just looking and
said nothing,
saying everything