by JW James.
like DNA spirals all the stories in my dreams
family trips to St. Joseph’s stepping
around gopher holes in the cemetery lawn
we always got lost it wasn’t like
they changed the place around on us
what is exhausting in a cemetery?
the stillness requires you to travel
great distances until finally we’d find
the two families the Irish section
a few rows from the Ukrainian we’d
stand there a few minutes dazed and
uninspired not much sense of respect
or prayer left in us so we’d pile into
the car and head for Rose Bakery
my dad would come out with a big
white box full of donuts that was
lunch confectioners sugar and jelly
chocolate and cream what is it about
a cemetery the grammar of the dead
carved into granite we always get
lost we want the sweet stuff and
voodoo we need seances to read
that grammar we want to pan for gold
we want our teeth gold-rimmed