By Tim Boiteau
After cremating you, I set your urn on the mantel over the fireplace.
Silent, collecting dust, you watch over me, advise me.
You want me to paint my nails like yours—chrome.
Want me to do my lips scarlet, wear my hair up, put on the torn baby-blue nightie.
When I refuse, you wriggle out of the urn in lacy shreds, ensnare and constrict me.
You make me cut myself—railroad tracks down my inner thighs—and parade for the town, your little marionette, dramatizing imagined crimes in the middle of the night.
Not my crimes.
No. I treated you right.
A strange and intriguing story.
Fascinating tale – several readings conjured up different images.
Fabulous.
Loved the last two lines.