New Year's Resolutions

I resolve to be a better friend, lover, son, and brother.
I resolve to give more of myself and take less from others.
To the eight directions I scatter my ashes,
The feeble and useless wastrel that I have been cast
Into the wind and rain, into the mouth of the cave.
Submerged and bloated, my only consolation gleams
In a shimmering square that lets the light in overhead,
A diaphanous, pulsing window shuffling toward sunset.

I resolve to bleed fear and hatred from every pore,
To wring these foul humors from my bones and sinew
Until I am purified and made whole, alive, again.

I resolve to tan my remains, stretched over my skeleton.
When my artifice fits the construct, the stuff of me,
Snug like a baseball glove, worn and leathery, chapped
Somewhere between good use and good form, let me die.

Take me out some sunny day, and remember.
The smell of oil and leather, the old satiny palm,
A crease between the ring and middle finger,
Cuff splashed with a bright red label: Rawlings.
I will give you what I can, what I have and am:
Protection, a soft fleshy barrier, worn to fit.