Poem for Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Cemetery Saunter

All those tombstones with German names etched on them and

alabaster Christ illuminated by a futile fluorescent light and

God the night dripped opaque but I still saw the spear wound.

          To house the dead along the railroad tracks is not an

          accident. It is steel smothering the sobs. It is strategy.

And the black iron fence smiled Death with gap teeth.

And the wet grass stuck to my bare feet and ankles.

The tallest monument screamed farm boy and Roma.

          You learn how people love when it is time for a

          burial. How all of the quiet years suddenly sting.