“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.” 
‍― Edvard Munch
‍
i picked Edvard’s flowers
dandelions from the mounds of moved 
Earth in the graveyard
made tea with their pill-box heads 
his body nourished these flowers
that nourish me 
now 
body juices 
slinking down 
to the corners of his polyester-lined coffin
leaking out of his cheap suit and 
leather shoes
like the sordid liquid from the bottom of a trashcan
and I am slurping it up 
a hint of dead meat 
an afterbirth of oil pastel 
a fingerbone 
a mummified penis 
noshing 
a table set 
crackered skin and splintered bone
i am drinking tea made from Edvard’s flowers
wondering if disease is a cosmic curse 
that will transverse the eons of time 
to find my recycled dandelion body 
and have a leper 
dine on me 
so I can once more
be sick
that is hell
persecution fitted 
with hemorrhoids 
and dysentery
i am drinking tea made 
from Edvard’s flowers
today, and 
i am sick
as ever 
wondering around 
a graveyard 
guessing 
when 
cancer
may 
take 
‍
me 

can 
i 
request 
to
be 
buried 
in a 
port-a-potty 
i 
know 
there 
are 
pink 
ones
it’s like those books on the Egyptians 
where i read 
as a kid 
lists of the games King Tut 
took to the grave
in case he got bored in eternity 
i’m not sure hell has bathrooms
but i’m dying to know

Published 30th December, 2023.
‍

Hannah Burns is a queer writer living in Northwest Florida with her two cats, Cheese and Toast. She co-runs a queer poets coalition in her town of residence. You can find her work in Emerald Coast Review, Screendoor Review, and Panama City Living Magazine.