when i die

When I die,
I want the people standing over me
hefting their final,
(as it turns out)
unnecessary stones
to be forced to admit
(although not out loud, of course)
that I have made the world a little more beautiful
as I've passed.

Not just in the languid way
my life-blood will have splayed out into the cracks of the riverbed
where we'll have congregated around
what might by then have been
the very last puddle,
anywhere.

And also not only in the clever turn of phrase
by which I will have reminded them of the ways in which
their once-upon-a-time maxed-out credit cards
had most likely led us there
to that final,
parched
adieu.

No, I want them to remember
how I once arranged letter-marks into clumps like this—
defiant, sanguine little protests against
(as it turns out)
our inexorable,

dust-choked

goodbye.