Monday, June 27, 2011

Riverview Cemetery, Late August, Late 20th Century


Tonight the stars whirl like clocks

And the wind is as cold as dirt under a slab.

There is only a faint misting in the trees,

An angel’s gun-shot eye black with mold

While the other stares down like a bald moon.

Does she blink? Get real, some say, no one stays.

It is only the imagination that creeps,

Through clouds of ragged sobs, darts of dark ivy

That close as do the bones

In a hand. To stand here

Is to stand in a sewer of discontent,

A roils of sky race over headstones

Wafer thin. A marble child,

Delicate as a fetus, lies down with a lamb.

So where is the little carved heart?

Under the ground and making a fist?

No matter now. Touch the stone

Where death once had her forehead pressed.

Nothing. Nothing here human, just murmuring,

A few interruptions of weeds and rocks.

This is not some garden for the overslept.

It is not the soul that is being kept.


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