Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, Union Station, Kansas City
I pay a little extra for an audio wand
so a narrator can serve me a pair of White Star pepper shakers.
Finger bowls of sea salt! Pots pissed in by the doomed!
New-fangled faucet handles for warm water baths
in the privacy of my first-class tub.
Would I have wanted to live for this?
Bowls we slurped soup from on display,
my daughter’s naked doll, my elephant pendant
caged in climate-controlled glass for strangers to sigh over.
The final room is dark & cold, waves projected
on floor & walls, twinkly-light stars out of reach.
I hand my last breath to the Atlantic in a silk coin purse.