I’m Reconsidering Burial by Maggie Smith

 

RECLINING WOMAN BY WILL BARNET

I’m Reconsidering Burial
by Maggie Smith

because if I were lying
in that narrow twin bed

under the sod, you might be
tempted to lie down there

at night, the stone a cold
headboard, and look up

at the sky—moon, stars,
wisps of cloud, etcetera—

and feel you are falling
asleep on the top bunk

and I am still tucked in
below you, telling you

my secrets in the dark.

Maggie Smith is the author of Weep Up (Tupelo Press, September 2017); The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison; Lamp of the Body; and three prizewinning chapbooks. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2017, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, and elsewhere. In 2016 her poem “Good Bones” went viral internationally and has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Sustainable Arts Foundation, Smith is a freelance writer and editor.

WEB