A Request to Live On as Color and Spice #4
Simon Peter Eggertsen
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2025 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Margaret Reid, Traditional Verse
With Rainer Maria Rilke in mind
When I die, God, let me live on as color and spice. Help me evade this blandness, pass through the black mirror with an armful of red roses, twists of henna and vanilla on the back of my hands. Drag a star through my body, God, sober me up with fire, wire me into color. Make my nerves blue ribbons, my bones pale porcelain, the surrounding dust stirred up by the hooves of rampaging mustangs. Flick the green light out of the corner of my eye, send it swift to the cemeteries of Yemen. Make an orchard of orchid buds from my nipples, fringed in maroon, centered in orange. Set me to sliding among red cherries and Julie mangos, danced by an Argentine tango, moved by the voice of Carlos Gardel. Arc my fingers into a turquoise circuit ‘til they spark yellow, tint raw China silk with drips of that color, dry in an afternoon of sun showers. When I die, God, let me live on as spice. Flavor some of me with night blooming jasmine and cinnamon onto the sweet edges of a cube of demerara sugar, launch it toward Trinidad. When I die, spread my ashes around, let my flecks live on elsewhere. Take some of me, God, to make a lightning bolt, jagged indigo at the edges and white, set me up to startle someone.
Let me live on as color and spice.
—San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, January 2014
