San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

BRIONY JAMES

Last Right

Bury me in turquoise chiffon

Make my coffin a boat

Send me to eternity like a fluttering wave

Speckled with foam

Or consign me to flame

in searing vermillion satin

A firebird dancing in a whirlwind

Embers charged from my fingertips

Disintegrate me in cerulean and lavender lace

Filmy shreds of evening clinging

So I can glow like a slip of twilight

Before merging with the dark

But do not send me to my rest

Swathed in that white shroud

That prompted fatal toasts

The veil that stole my face

That pale prisoner's garb

Tripped my steps

And marked the locked door

Where existence became stasis

I spent too long

Living in that grave