If I must die young, tie streamers to the bumper, trail beer cans behind us to wake up the earth & wait for the blood to drip from my five-nippled feet. Feed me to the neighbors, girl dredged in wine, and pretend there is something to celebrate.

Don�t imagine me in heaven.

I'll be hiding in the hollows of a drunken fruit tree, sucking rum from tangerines and kissing their segments like lips. I�ll post my poems on its trunk with sap and grow leafy wings to blend with branches when larger creatures try to dominate me.

If you find me in pieces, place one ovary in each pocket to keep warm the children we might have had and string the eggs around your neck to show that you own me.

Place a mustard seed in my womb and plant it on the kitchen counter. When it surfaces, whisper sonnets in its green ear & feed it marrow as you carve flutes from my thighs.

If I must die young, don�t confine me to the earth.

Ask the Little Prince draw me a box to die in with holes for escaping where you can peek into the windows and imagine me healthy and strong in an unseen corner.

Or fashion a music box from a coffin, attach my feet to springs and open the lid at night while our children are sleeping.

Watch me pirouette until I�m dizzy, until the stars begin to melt into one another like a halo over my head and I�ve stirred my death into the sky.



� 2004 by Jalina Mhyana
* First published in Branches Quarterly, winter 2003/04