I'll Buy a Box Today

You're hardly cold. I'll choose a simple chest,
a plain pine box in which to bury you.
The living have to lay the dead to rest.

There's only this last chore for me to do:
clear up the residue, release your shade
to end our covenant. We always knew

that one would go ahead. Not the brocade.
You liked that satin robe I used to wear—
though you can't see. I wish you could have stayed.

A box is just a box. The dead don't care.
A funeral's for the ones you've left behind.
I'll take the brass with satin - over there.

You're hardly cold. Yes, there, the satin lined.
I'll buy a bed to lay you in today.
The living have to put the dead away.

Carol Taylor lives in the Houston area, where she works for an international company and does free lance translating and volunteer work. Her poetry has appeared recently in Iambs & Trochees, Light Quarterly, Susquehanna Quarterly, Byline Magazine, Artemis Journal, and Alsop Review Press's Anthology One. Since 2001 she has held the post of Administrator of the online poetry workshop, Eratosphere. Her chapbook, Saving for the Future, was printed in 2003.