An eternity ago

I learned graveyards

were more than what I found

in books for children.

Spooktacular artists, authors

with cruel imaginations

and sharp wit and sharper

pens drew me lives

until I found deaths

and comfort in the rest

beyond life.

In Fall, Autumn leaves

clutter the withered

path of cracked stone

cut with blades of grass,

chipped like old bone.

Lawnmower idle noise

composed in a muffled grandure

of a dilapidated pine.

Whispered breeze rattles dry

tree branches, move

like black fingers reaching.

The jingle-jangle of a dog

’s leash tethered to the slender

wrist of a school girl dressed

in sport’s bra, neon running shoes,

and tights that show

her underwear is white.

A dog in a yard of sacred

bones blanketed in red,

orange, and yellow leaves

muddy around the rusted

weed whacker that leans

on the weakened chain link

fence with a hole.

The fuller jingle-jangle,

a missing flag slackened

metallic clang echoes

from a pole taller than

the willows and oaks

and the mausoleum marble.

Warm slosh of water

hung at my hip joint in

a net strung from my bag,

rhymes with the river

on the other side

of the hill with the white cross.

My friends instead

of faces I see stones

some dateless

some nameless

some lost and mossy

some cared for with piles

of lilies that died at least

twice since they’d been grown

cut then wilted.

I’m carried to one

with no family around

and a pile of shit

spilled onto the near

smooth surface left

to claim this person’s

identity could be forgotten.

A long moment passes

in which I contemplate

the pile of shit

on this person’s grave.

no birth nor death,

no loving epitaph,

and barely a name.

It smears when I nudge

it off with a stick

that puts mud on my palm.

I undo the netting

and I wash the remains

with what’s left in my bottle

wet the stone.

The water reflects

the sun in good places

so I can see he’d died

in 1888, at the age

of 71.  He lived

to be old,

then buried here.

I’ve done a dead man a favor

not for his sake but mine,

what does he care if

there’s shit on his grave? 

He won’t owe me a thing

has nothing to give,

but I feel I’ve done nicely and

march on waiting for the day

I can forget to worry

if someone will wash

the shit from my grave.