Prickly with head stones

Illinois, USA

Southwest Corners

Breath holding to pass
you know the old wives tale
all of the stories piled up
spinning round me like
funnel clouds, makes me think funnel cake
roller coasters, Great America, Gurnee
and ice cream, cold and white
layers of swirls as a topping

Hold your breathe

Resurrection cemetery
I said I would take you there,
to touch the palmed over bars
to see the dead, photographs circular
popped off of grave stones
likely pocketed.
mementos hard and fast. remembrance.

Quick inhale

we could walk enclosed and hear the traffic
sifting through branches and brambles
our vision tree pocked
Roberts Road ringing back at us

Cemetery white is a dirty grey

family plots, neat little rows
I walked between
respectful of the rectangular shape of things
you walked in zigzags, fully absorbing
covering ground in loping circles
to my one foot in front of the other,
heel to toe and back again
plastic vases and rows of roses
marred by landmarks
the map of turns in my head fuzzy
finding them was scattered
a series of lefts and rights,
mostly back tracks

Prickly with head stones

But in the end all I could remember
was the breath holding
and how we never had,
had never gone at all,
instead I pulled and plucked from what I wished