I wipe her tiny green body,
preparing to send it down
a small trench to the Animus,
doing it with a glass of tea
and something other than sadness,
her two stiff arms pointing upward
from her unyielding frame, as if
to ask for a keepsake, something
to take to the place without me.
I kiss the small weapon
fixed to her hand and release
her shiny body through the brown
fissure and into another
flimsy world, mother turtle depositing
hatchlings. In death we see
what’s inside, the soft uncertainties
rearranging. When I die, I want to
be palatable, eaten up by a lover’s
feelings, the world looking down
on my measly form as it follows
a tea-soaked slice of orange
to the space where I’ll be planted
in a small spot of earth, an egg
in the sand, heart-sap ripening.