TY - JOUR AU1 - Cohen, Carole AB - Carole Cohen In Ghana, artistic casket makers carve wooden caskets in shapes of favorite foods, hobbies, occupations, beloved pets of the deceased, who place their requests while still alive. Colorful, large co≈ns, artists work in wood and paint for months, a year, only to see these works of art buried. I love the shapes and sizes of fish, but don’t want to be placed in their bellies. I don’t want to be buried in a champagne bottle, a pineapple, a shoe, a hammer, or piano, and certainly not in a cell phone . . . not a ship, where my remains should be put in steerage, nor in the driver’s seat of an antique car. Make my casket an open, wooden book of balsa wood pages with gilded edges that will ripple in the wind, filled with the writing of my poems. Place my body in the binding. Let my words be held up on your shoulders, laugh, dance, sing, and drink spirits. Then set it on fire and free the words to black ash. May they gently rain down, may you remember me as ink on a page. prairie schooner TI - Directions for My Funeral JF - Prairie Schooner DA - 2017-08-09 UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/university-of-nebraska-press/directions-for-my-funeral-O3E1Nmrx2g SP - 73 EP - 74 VL - 91 IS - 2 DP - DeepDyve ER -