After My Death

(not a poem)

Remove

wedding ring (gold),

Watch (Timex–$35)

Glasses (blended, or reading)

IPhone 6+ (right pants pocket,

or still clutched in hand)

Buck penknife (left pants pocket)

(Wallet, keys, calendar on closet

shelf by front door)

Not to fear touching dead body:

does not look human, all people

turn gray (red, yellow, black,

and white–all the same color

when blood no longer

circulates–equal at the end.)

And all go from warm to cold.

To open phone: xxxx

-Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 11, 2016

Gordon’s note: Unfortunately I couldn’t post this in its original format which included indentations. Imagine everything under the bolded print indented and looking like a ski slope \ . We’re all on that downward slope. Some know it more than others. Some deny it. Some face it.  Thank you, Steve, for the continuing honesty in the face of death. Honesty has not killed Humor or your continuing witness to an end of racism (“equal at the end”).