\ ode to my ushabti

I would fret over my grave goods, annoy my ushabti in the next life. I'm not afraid of work, I'd say. I didn't bring you here for menial labors, but labors of love, to steer the ships going bump in the night. Now that we have a few passes without the constriction of a safety harness, driving too fast and drunk along the interstate, swimming with our toes too close to the milfoil, so unprotected, not entirely infallible, but still. STILL. My God, how we want. I just want your ability to listen without speaking, your terra cotta mouth sealed in permanent nonjudgment. I swear not to drop you! I may turn you around on your pedestal, from time to time, in this place without time, in order to avoid your eyes, fired in the oven to ever watchfulness, decorated with your useless, painted eyelids, painted in such sorrowful shadow.

I have a job for you, nevertheless, not a yeoman's work, unless you think it such, but a task for cherubs, an arrow shot through the id of some girl I met back when I was alive, who then proceeded to put me off my path, until the only way back was to drink my way again up the hill, stumble into the passersby. I could hear her walking parallel in the understory, and occasionally I'd stumble, she'd be there so sweetly. I admit, I found the life of plenty so dreary, and yet. Still. Still.

I want you to push someone else into her brambles, fill her arms with someone new. I've never desired this for someone I love, to hitch to someone else's wagon filled with objects of affection, the self-preservation of forced requisition, love imposed upon someone else to free you up for your hobbies. You know how much I like to travel! I want us to be buried in an old pick up truck with a manual starter and a biodiesel engine, start a taxi service in Elysium and stick you to the dashboard like a bobblehead Jesus. And drive and drive and drive. I'll do all the talking, doll.