It’s a bet of long odds that my final words

will be notable or recorded,

so let the family gathered about my bed

ask what I’d like to eat--anything at all--

while I still have some sense about me.

And it will be fried clams a dutiful child

will rush across the city to find

and bring back warm and in the nick of time,

a mound of whole bellies, both commonplace

and indulgent, on the bedside table.

A little grit will be a small price to pay

to refine the iconography: gnarled

fingers crossed and golden as I sail off

in that red and white checkered cardboard boat

through the sacred, greasy incense of summer.

header image: eenwall / flickr

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