THE GRAVE
The long, black train howls into the night,
Carrying coal and crates…..
The dead, dark trees where the graveyard abates
Are sentinels to tombs in the moonlight…….
Cupolas are ashen.
Rooftops are broken, steely and gray.
The deepening death of the cold, autumn day
Is seen in the green around the bastion.
I rove among the ancient crypts, drinking potent, cooling wines…
Ghosts arise from the brown, aged base of pines…..
One among their number troubles me…
Her face is pale, and her eyes are dull and dead;
Scarcely can be heard her whispered words of dread.
She is clothed with dew and grass, the cemetery’s sea.
“I was your wife,”
She speaks with a haunting rasp,
Into the fog, the brine of the breeze.
I fear for my life,
Darkened by the white-clad clasp
Of tawny, weeping cypress trees.
She takes my hand into her own,
And drags me slowly down
Beneath a marble slab of stone,
Where devoid of any hope I drown
Into the soil, into a casket of metal
Which closes upon me, as she speaks:
“Our union is eternal-
And the coffin leaks………”
~ John Lars Zwerenz
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