Doreen, keep those lawyers handy
In my Will I'm leaving you all my sad manuscripts
all of my dusty poems like so many lottery tickets
scratched and saved for what compulsive wish?
I know you intend to fight it in court
and how can I blame you?
It would be like inheriting a weak chin or diabetes
a paltry bequest at best,
my manuscripts and ashes,
hardly worth the storage space.
You'll be glad to know
that they are pressing my ashes
into a shiny little pill, you can hide me
at the bottom of an Advil bottle.
The damned poems will be your problem.
Your lawyer will advise you against reading them
as he should, especially in your bereaved state
but someone will have to read them in order to appraise the value of the estate. I hope the taxes won't be too much. Your lawyer will also explain to you that in the event that you bring suit to refuse this bequest, you would be suing yourself and no matter if you won or lost you would be stuck with the poems, either as trustee or beneficiary. That's my little after-death joke to you because I knew it would appeal to your sense of circularity.
I suppose you could make them into a book.
But please not a glossy coffee table book
make it a book that you would keep
hidden between the mattress of your heart
and the box-springs of your imagination