Let me die among books
that have been read -
spines bent through use
but still able to hold
their place in line.
I want their pages traveled -
margins inked, even a corner bent.
Let my books speak
of where I’ve been,
not where I’d hoped to go.
And should I die with a bookmark
still in place -
pick up, finish for me
as if this story, our story,
were just too good to put down.
–-
* from If We Are What We Remember: New and Selected Poems, Whittier Publications, 2005
Author Bio: Linda Opyr is the Nassau County Poet Laureate 2011-13. She is the author of seven collections of poetry - the latest, The Ragged Cedar (2012). Her poems have appeared in the New York Times, The Hudson Review, Paterson Literary Review, Atlanta Review, and numerous anthologies, journals, magazines, and newspapers.