Paradise Lost

If I die today after writing
this poem—God will have

fulfilled his promise to show
me Paradise—then rip it away.

I want my poems cremated,
to vanish in the falling snow,

dented words and phrases
to melt in the spring thaw;

or better yet, load them onto
a boy’s sailboat and set me

adrift, at last, in the fountain
of the Jardin du Luxembourg.

John Kay