Cemetery Road
Off Yarra Street, turn right
(mind the oncoming traffic)
and the first three or four houses,
new, on the left all look desirable:
fresh, elegant, at home already
among the sun-glinting eucalypts.
The second is still for sale -
couldn't we downsize here?
Further from town, fewer rooms,
affordable, livable. Roses; quiet.
But who wants to live on Cemetery Road?
After the houses there's that open space,
parcelled out in graves and grave-sites.
Not far to go when the time comes.
The ultimate in downsizing.
Observe the waiting plastic frames:
piled, each a little larger than a grave:
once the grave is dug you don't want it filling with rain.
I sense my pallbearers' black shoes, polished
that morning, sinking in soft clay at my grave's edge,
the awkwardness with ropes, the tilting
and lowering, settling down there, now
and forever. The muddied shoes step back
discreetly. Rose petals flutter on my lid.
Wednesday 1 October 2008
Max Richards, Doncaster, Victoria
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