Ghost me. Fossil me.
Resurrect me near dawn.
– Traci Brimhall
On my father’s side
I am part fish.
When I am dead,
return me to water.
That part of me
which is raven, on
my mother’s side,
will submit.
Do not waste time.
Do not bury me,
or feed me to maggots.
Return me to water,
I’ve shown you where.
The flow is steady
at this Point.
Don’t reduce me to ash.
Petrify me.
Bed me in the fresh lake
whose virtue is
to harden heart to stone.
The sediment
will own me, preserve me
from foragers,
minerals will fill me,
form stone-crystal
casts of every sealed cell,
death-bound inside me.
Return me to water
and no church please,
this is my wish.
From my father’s side
I am part fish.
First published in Eleanor Hooker’s second poetry collection A Tug of Blue (Dedalus Press), October 2016.
Artwork by Jackie Benney. Published with permission of the artist.
