beside six feet under
with the etched gravestone’s master
her tender calloused hands practiced
an uphill battle taming the earth to remember us
she went to school for this tax payer dollars
honor who came before insignificant and small
her thesis carved every name of all she’s ever met
like this
lines define her arms soft shadows
like the slates in her closet she’s let me find my hands along
there's a roughness in the carvings where I can tell
stone strained with the art embraced
beauty and the bite of a chisel
her fingers curl round the grip gaze lightning fixed on stone
to be set under a pine atop mountain where air is thin gasping
for anything the sky allows
the jolt hits my eyes then soothes into a low skull rolling
numbness warm like just one more drink
I curl into her learned embrace remembering
our carved bedsheets restless
rainfall sets the earth she promises behind the clouds windtorn
she saw beyond the moon stars upright
scrawled against the face of night