Memento Mori
by Billy Collins

There is no need for me to keep a skull on my desk,
to stand with one foot up on the ruins of Rome,
or to wear a locket with a sliver of a saint's bone.

It is enough to realize that every common object
in this small sunny room will outlive me---
the mirror, radio, bookstand and rocker.

Not one of these things will attend my burial,
not even this battered goosenecked lamp
with its steady, silent benediction of light,

though I could put worse things in my mind
than the image of it waddling across the cemetery
like an old servant, dragging the tail of its cord,
the small circle of mourners parting to make room.