Lɘ° M@lɘt’s Mannequin

Ruth Towne

 

The note is a final touch, a preparation for the afterlife,
it will be a small stone amulet between papyrus linens.
But the walls are going up, there is no time to compose
either message or the messenger. Tomorrow it will be

sealed inside the sheetrock, waiting, one would hope,
decades for another stranger to excavate that tomb.
So she finds she’s telling the future what anyone would–
who planted the peonies, and where the pets are buried.

 

***

Ruth Towne is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program. Her poetry has recently appeared in Grim & Gilded, Plainsongs Poetry Magazine, New Feathers Anthology, The Orchard Poetry Review, The Decadent Review, Inlandia Literary Journal, and Beyond Words Literary Magazine. She has forthcoming publications in Mantis Poetry Journal. She hopes someday to become a respected gardener.