Ready for the Lacquer 

The veins in my hands

Are blue-line highways.

The timepiece on my wrist

Will endure

Long after the bones beneath

Lie in gloom and dust.

 

The flag I now salute

Will add stars to its constellation

Long after those I know by heart

Are lost to memory.

 

Those who find my marker

Cannot know my love

For cherry pie

Baseball

Bright red pickup trucks

And dark silken hair cascading

Like waterfalls

Around soft shoulders.

Even if they did

What profit is there to the sleeper

Or the waked?

 

Even now the tree

From which they make my

Future container

May have been cut, planed and sanded

Ready for the lacquer.

 

That is as it should be.

One more trip around the sun

May exact more toll

Than I am prepared to pay.

 

My body has served me well

In its course of years.

It is good to not step a moment

Beyond that which will

Gather me to my fathers.

 

For everything there is a season

And a time to every purpose

Under Heaven.