IMPROMPTU #43: When I'm Dead...

"When I'm dead I won't be looking for a partner
As much as a heavenly creature"

- Dorothea Lasky

Oh yes, we're going there. Today's prompt: "When I'm dead..."

What do you expect from death? From "Heaven"? From the afterlife? What are you waiting for? What do you hope for?

For further inspiration, read the full poem "Complainers" (from Rome) by Dorothea Lasky, or listen to her read it here (I love the way she kind of yells her poems). 

IMPROMPTU #42: "This Was Once a Love Poem" Word Pool

Let's do another Jane Hirshfield word pool, why not. Just as a refresher, the rules for the word pool are as follows:

Use all the words.

That's all.

Here are your words:

haunches

dressing

beer

shyness

history

skin

nightfall

cactus

flowering

outstretched

Words mined from the following poem:

THIS WAS ONCE A LOVE POEM

by Jane Hirshfield

This was once a love poem,
before its haunches thickened, its breath grew short,
before it found itself sitting,
perplexed and a little embarrassed,
on the fender of a parked car,
while many people passed by without turning their heads.

It remembers itself dressing as if for a great engagement.
It remembers choosing these shoes,
this scarf or tie.

Once, it drank beer for breakfast,
drifted its feet
in a river side by side with the feet of another.

Once it pretended shyness, then grew truly shy,
dropping its head so the hair would fall forward,
so the eyes would not be seen.

It spoke with passion of history, of art.
It was lovely then, this poem.
Under its chin, no fold of skin softened.
Behind the knees, no pad of yellow fat.
What it knew in the morning it still believed at nightfall.
An unconjured confidence lifted its eyebrows, its cheeks.

The longing has not diminished.
Still it understands. It is time to consider a cat,
the cultivation of African violets or flowering cactus.

Yes, it decides:
Many miniature cacti, in blue and red painted pots.
When it finds itself disquieted
by the pure and unfamiliar silence of its new life,
it will touch them—one, then another—
with a single finger outstretched like a tiny flame