FOR MY MOTHER
She demands a burlap sack and hand-dug
backyard hole, despite questionable legality
within city limits or merits of me muscling
her in, rigor mortis and all. I ought to just
acquiesce, pump iron in preparation. But
it's the literal carrying of her death, which
I must do anyway from then on. So I offer
Arizona desert where they'd place her on
a platform to bake, sustain vultures. Even
the body farm, where she'd be tossed down
a well, bullet-riddled. But she insists, so
I picture handing shovels to siblings. And,
once the size seemed sufficient, I'd head
inside, lift her as Atlas, she, the world.
Copyright © 2017 Luiza Flynn-Goodlett. “Will” originally appeared in Tar River Poetry. Used with permission of the author.