Instructions For My Funeral

by Andrea Cohen

I have but one
request: serve chocolate-
dipped crickets; this should be
an event no one
will wish to repeat.
In addition, waive all
admission fees, blast
rockabilly from one speaker,
Bach from the quartet.
Let the dress code
be optional, or hiphop.
Don’t scrimp when it comes
to cloud-seeding. Seat
the starlets near
the tear buckets, give
the bartenders stiff ones
before they report,
let them serve ether
cocktails and please do
trouble yourself enough
to fetch my mother
back from the hereafter—
expenses be damned! I’ll
need her to hold my hand.
And lastly, friend, crack
the lid a little, enough
to confirm a casket
of mistaken identity.
Tell the sad sack inside,
better luck next time. Tell
my mother, as long
as she’s here, to
linger for the festivities.

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About the Author

Andrea Cohen’s most recent books are Furs Not Mine (Four Way Books 2015) and Kentucky Derby (Salmon Poetry, 2011). Four Way will publish her fifth poetry collection in 2017.  Cohen directs the Blacksmith House Poetry Series in Cambridge, MA and the Writers House at Merrimack College.

Image

Dean Morley: Cricket, 2014 (CC)