as he stands in the doorway
while I hunch over the computer.
Guess what I found in the garage?
A rattlesnake, I answer.
He laughs and I keep typing.
Can’t this wait until I finish my poem?

No. He whirls my chair around,
takes my hand and kneels down.
Close your eyes, he says, and I feel 
something sliding on my finger.
Now you can open your eyes, he says.

Winking at me like a sparkling star
is my missing solitaire diamond ring
I picked out after he proposed
and the gold band that sealed
the deal in the hot air balloon
floating over Reno many moons ago.

I never take it off, even when
I fall while doing the tree pose
and break all my fingers 
and they swell like sausages
and the ring tightens like a vice 
cutting off my circulation.

When the swelling shrinks
and the ring slips and slides
like a seal on a sandy beach, 
I just wrap tape around it.
Then one day five years ago
as I put avocados in the bin
I notice my ring finger is naked.

We empty drawers like burglars,
retrace our steps and query
clerks at Wal-Mart, the Dollar
Store, Superstition Market
but they all shake their heads.
We check the parking lots,
storm drains, pawn shops,
eBay, make a police report,
Even glance at ring fingers
of friends and strangers.

We can’t bring ourselves
to replace it. I have a feeling
we will find it someday, I say
but my hope fades as the years 
come and go. Still the solitaire
sits near the water tank waiting
as we walk by for us to look down
and pick it up and put it back
on my finger where it belongs.
                        

Cremation is cheaper, my husband says.
But the voice of the Pentecostal preacher
still echoes in my head, You’ll burn
in hell for your sins. Why did I give up
clandestine rendezvous, Kalua & cream,
and filet mignon to burn my body
until it turns to dust like the dirt
I vacuumed up for years 
when I had more fun sinning?

The undertaker shows me stainless
steel boxes that keep bodies
preserved like pickled pigs feet
but my claustrophobia kicks
in and I reach for my inhaler. Donate
your body to science, the sign
says, but I cannot picture students
the age of my grandchildren gawking
at my skeleton and pointing out
my imperfections. Sleep on it, my sister says.

Always wear clean underpants
in case you get in an accident,
my mother taught me
before we buried her in a pine box
more than two decades ago
so I put on Tide scented bikini panties
before I slip between the sheets just in case 
one of the fighter jets careening
overhead crashes and burns on our roof.