John McKernan
Forget About the Will. Take Long Naps
Plant more wildflowers
All around your coffin
Paste some more photos
On the lid of your coffin
Use that invisible twenty year glue
Stuff more crepe paper and street maps
And hymns and chants and harmonicas
Inside your coffin
Don't forget Ray Charles “Yesterday”
The universe is large
Lonelier than the Black Hills
Most people try to avoid a diet
Of pulverized sundials
And dehydrated Omaha water
In the Museum I Know I Know I Know
I should be learning something
Looking at brilliant feathers
Of an eagle
Rearranged into a war bonnet
As art
But I keep thinking
Of the little kids down the block
Who found the electrocuted eagle
With a mouse in its claws
How they spent an hour
Plucking every feather
From the bird
Pushing a few into their hair
Stuffing the rest into their pockets
John McKernan has published poems in The Atlantic Monthly, Antioch Review, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He lives mostly in West Virginia, where he edits ABZ Press.
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