Triny Finlay - of future cosmetics

…There are
good reasons for death, you said,
and sucked the spicy liquor from my
last small breath.
—Susan Musgrave
“Cocktails at the Mausoleum”

What they might try to map out
on my face, or with needles

I would rather burn

The unfinished quilts
pressed, in a case, beneath the bed

Some still uncut and, so, whole

But waiting

Of floral wreaths, lily stench, baskets lined
like seniors’ beds with impermeable sheets

And the pale dog, lost now, somewhere pleased
or desperate, wondering

That last drink drawn between us

An imperceptible surge in the grid, in
the walls that hide our wiring

But not of death
(Of dying