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Planned Ends

By Kris Indermaur

You bought a mahogany coffin years before your death.  
Did you anticipate the four strokes that would end your life?   
   
You paid for your plot on the grassy hill  
almost a decade before you could no longer 
put names to the faces you saw 
and you couldn’t drink water or eat.   

You bought a white marbled headstone to be placed  
near your baby brother, but not your parents. 
In fact, most of your family is buried nearby except for them.  
I wish I had asked you about that.     

You picked out your favorite black suit to be buried in.  
I had never seen you in it before.   
It was better than your Sunday’s best for church.   

They came for your body at dawn.  
You were still warm at four in the morning  
as if you would jump up and give us relief.   

Now at six A.M., you are stone cold.  
My mother never left your side.   
She wanted to make sure everyone followed your wishes.  
  
I should have known you would die soon  
and now I have the ghost of a dead man 
hanging over my head. 

 

Filed Under: Poetry

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