Backyard

When the trees shed their leaves I can see the headstones climbing up the hill behind my house. Though I don’t intend to be buried there nor anywhere, the idea of an epitaph is appealing; I already think every word as if etching it in stone. But I know my grave will be empty, and I know the marker will either be blank or filled with all the things I felt guilty about not saying. I want to be cremated like my father. His ashes were heavier than I expected. No one will carry me as dust back to bones of my ancestors, no I will be dumped without ceremony into the garbage can of a church I’d never been to in life and am not welcome in dead.