Oct/Nov 2004 • Poetry |
Monuments
I see them everywhere: small tributes
to those whose last breaths
were taken along these roads.Crosses and bundles of silk flowers,
stuffed bears, small photos, and glittering
streamers grow alongside the weeds.So many memorials: the shoulder seems
too small to hold it all.
Some lean under the weight of their grief.The silver chain hangs around my neck:
his hands were the last to touch it.
It's just long enough to drop betweenmy breasts. At first it was cold and foreign,
but I let it warm, let the sliver of it
rise and fall, mark this empty space.