I've been trying to write a poem with a specific purpose in mind. To serve as a kind of coda for my series book. I am still debating whether or not it is actually needed. Not sure if I'll call it Coda or Autograph the Body or simply Autograph. The final stanza gives some flavor of what might or might not come before. I'd really like to use this epigraph -- I remember a version of this from high school year book days!
Autograph
When I am dead and in my grave
And all my bones are rotten,
When this you see, remember me,
Let me not be forgotten.
—Anonymous,
“Love Posies” 1596
The left-behind signatures are fixed in indelible
ink. Layers below dermis, needle-nosed and
still speaking, deep.
