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