A U-Haul For The Filthy Rich Poem by Donal Mahoney

Long ago you said birth and death
were the bookends of life.
Nothing before. Nothing after.

We were saplings at the time.
Since then we've made a lot of money.
But now we're ancient oaks toppling

toward that second bookend.
A storm could take us down any day
so let's put our gold in a U-Haul

and attach it to the hearse.
If there's nothing on the other side,
we'll still have the gold with us

unless the poor find out and dig it up.
And if there's something after death
at least the gold, unlike us, won't burn.