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.