Today's poem is by Michelle Matz

Obituary
       

Alabama has the shortest average obituary length,
Maine the highest. I don't know what that says

about death or the heaps of days before, the clutter people
leave behind. I read once that the New York Times writes

obituaries for the pre-dead, will even interview the subject
still knee-deep in to-do lists. I am certain nobody

has written my obituary yet. Most of my life is barely worth
mentioning anyway — the garden I didn't tend, that time

I stayed in the phone booth long after the call was over,
my muddled twenties. I envy lives with a narrative arc —

a relatively calm beginning, a bit of tension and character
conflict in the middle, some momentum, a nice resolution.

I've sorted through my memories enough to know I
should have offered to pitch in, brought more to pot-lucks.

My obituary won't mention such hard-won truths, will
focus, instead, on my accomplishments in this-and-that.

Dear obituary reader, my life was a clattering of elbows
and skinned knees, and the kitchen faucet leaked incessantly

for years. I learned to call that music.

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Copyright © 2023 Michelle Matz All rights reserved
from Main Street Rag
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission