I lived too long to be Peter Pan,
but to die is an awfully big adventure.  
When I’m gone,
my dearly non-departed,
you MUST bury me in wide leg jeans,
as expansive as the other side. 
Zip on my heavenly JNCOS
while my apple body still holds its core. 

I know you may be used to me 
in pants tight enough to evade stabbing—
a holdover from my community health days—
But I want to BILLOW on the other side 
and hear the same shocked gasps
that I’m faster than I look. 

Bury me in my Muppet Christmas Carol sweatshirt,
so when I come back
I can sing Statler and Waldorf’s parts,
Marley and Marley, CHANGE!

Give me some sweet orthopedic shoes,
so every time you go into your basement 
I almost catch you, sketcher skittering,
the reason you keep your tarot cards
in the garage. 

Don’t bother with my rings,
like the one with the art deco enamel,
I want to see them on your 
granddaughter’s fingers. 
The good stuff was always for you. 
For me there’s no afterlife
unless you keep haunting me too. 

---

Nicole Shepherd is an Appalachian poet living in Chicago. Her poems appear in Maudlin House, Rust + Moth, Corporeal Lit, Orange Rose Literary Magazine, Free the Verse, Tulipwood Press’s Seedfall, and elsewhere.  You can find her with a mint tea in a coffee shop somewhere scribbling notes about the intersection of survival, the body, and everyday wonder.  Find her @tenderpunkconfessional on Instagram.