Rules of the game,
Pray thee know,
Are many in the beginning
And few when you go.
Take up thy May flowers
And scatter them wide
For your funeral is coming
After you’ve died.
And those who come
to pay the last goodbye
with sorrow in their hearts
and tears in their eye
should be as many as the petals
you shared in your prime
that bless your passing
with sweet memory of your time.
Lynette G. Esposito, MA Rutgers, has been published in Poetry Quarterly, North of Oxford, Twin Decades, Remembered Arts, Reader’s Digest, US1, and others. She was married to Attilio Esposito and lives with eight rescued muses in Southern New Jersey.