THE DEAD

There’s no immortality, no marble steps

not covered in moss, no

perpetuation. February’s soft shoots

will pierce the ink-dark names

on fallen monuments.

History omits such details: how we

slowly die. Darkness presses down those lids

that wept the common griefs.

Young or old

whoever lies here

was a child once, tottering

on this great earth where insects and birds

are called to make it pretty.

In fear the living lose their lips

that once were true, like the fingers of the dead

reduced to ash, nameless things

that vanish in a wink—

no survivors,

no witnesses.