Odd Jobs: Cemetery Groundskeeper

The sun is past its piety

and climbs higher up

on them each noon,

ignorant, childlike;

decoration days

  * * *

We go together, piano piano, 

picking wilted flowers 

from the graves. 

"Angel Duty" you call it

but don't talk much as

we walk two paces and a row

of dead between us,

the bowl of your arms

filling with cellophane. 

I've never been deadly

these are just stones

just myths beneath,

just dropped virgin guns

filled breach and barrel

with useless shot. 

I've never stood and stared

at the names which 

ring round like warding signs

and when I walk through the rows

with my head turned, I am not

searching for my own cleared patch

I am only watching you and watching

the fans of headstones

ceaselessly close.