LJ SYSKO

I have a friend who wants to be buried

in a cocoon,
her decomposing corpse becoming food
for a planted tree. This presumes a lot
on behalf of the tree.
My friend’s in excellent condition so, as a meal,
she’d be more organic than most
what with yoga, pilates, 
undyed hair, and the diet requiring she pour
melted butter churned from Irish grass-fed cows’ milk
into her morning coffee.
Whether it’s Elm or Linden, Hickory or Tulip,
these are her choices, like men on Tinder.
Tulips are the tallest Eastern hardwood,
and Hickory’s the broad-shouldered one 
often seen standing in a field all alone. Whichever
she chooses, her tree will embrace her bundle—
fetal position and upside down—
mixing her into a batter, a paste, muesli
thinned with rainwater. When he lifts the pablum to his lips,
he’ll sip and she’ll rise, climbing higher, 
stripping herself bare, leaving clothes on the stairs, 
laughing so only he can hear. Rings mark the years.

L.J. Sysko is the author of BATTLEDORE (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, BEST NEW POETS, Rattle, Voicemail Poems, Painted Bride Quarterly, Slush Pile podcast, and SWWIM Every Day, among others. Sysko holds an MFA in poetry from New England College and has twice been awarded fellowships by Delaware's Division of the Arts; other honors include several Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg awards, an Academy of American Poets prize, and finalist recognition from The Fourth River, The Pinch, and Soundings East. She lives in Wilmington, Delaware and can be found online at ljsysko.com.