Friendship (Cemetery Ardor)

We counted the stones
and slabs
from here to the end
and back,
the percentage
of flowered beds,
from fresh to wilty
to inorganic

(Ardor)

That so Night's shadow
not fall, unappeased,
I walk with you
among the trees,
for when we wend
our way back home,
and I find myself
by way your cemetery,
I may recall a love
felt beneath the sheet,
while you lie, altogether
fast asleep.

(Betrayal)

He pinned his cemetery letters
to the sweater in your shadow,
where each note had rung true,
'til the night you came to him
much too warm to the touch,
and it was evident that some body
had kept you occupied that morning...

(Separation)

Lazy bones sat in her mausoleum
waiting for her boy to come
and take her to the dance,
never taking it upon herself
to find her own way from the curb—
maybe to the curb and back,
but never all the way to the dance.

Who would he dance with
if he went without her?
-she often wondered.

(Resurrection)

I said I'd find my way back to you
by the cemeteries,
I remember the drive to your home
with no maps to speak of,
the soul of each cemetery
in ordered rows to guide;

I found our picnic blanket
in the churchyard,
we'd left it in the rain
under an elmy obelisk
for your home to take me back home,
-and if the church is abandoned
we can make it our own.