backyard mumification 

we had to use leaves because
mom said it would be a waste of
toilet paper. the day before we'd learned
about ancient egyptian tombs
in school. our teacher decorated the room
with gold symbols. pictures of 
the sphinx. i was fixated on figuring out
my own afterlife. i loved the idea
of taking all my stuffed animals with me.
in the yard, we ran out of oak leaves 
& moved onto just handfuls of grass.
i had enlisted my sibling & my neighbor.
in the garage we found the purple sled 
as the sarcophagus lid. i was almost complete.
all that year i had been more & more
afraid of death. my death & my parents
& my sibling. a man had been hit by a truck
on his motorcycle up the street. i don't know
if that was a catalyst or just incidental. 
they cleaned the road. added a helicopter pad
to the tiny air field up the street. whenever
i heard sirens i was convinced they were
headed for my house. mumification was 
such a welcome remedy. i imagined starting 
with my dad & moving on to everyone
i loved. the garage was the closest thing 
to a tomb we had so it would have to do.
we could close our eyes. feel each other's breath
in the dark. the backyard mumification
was just a practice, i told myself. i was not sure
if i should shut my eyes or leave them open.
arms crossed against my chest beneath 
the purple plastic sled. i forget who got worried first.
probably my sibling. they pulled the lid off.
were relieved that i wasn't really mumified,
just resting in the shade of the pine tree. 
it ended up being a good thing we didn't use
the toilet paper. i didn't last long. over the next
few weeks we would practice a few more times.
once, i swapped places. let my neighbor be wrapped
in make-shift gauze. he fell asleep. admitted
it was hard to sleep sometimes in his house. 
we put the lid back on & waited for him to get up.
somewhere in the practice i gave up
on my vision of the tomb. every once in awhile 
we still played the mumification game. 
seasons changed. the game was best in october
when we had red & yellow & orange leaves
to work with. inside the sarcophagus, 
the earth smelled like sweet rot & old wood.