Any grave of any size
is paved in wrong gray font.
Glib dates inscribed upon a tomb
tell nothing of absence and void,
of what remains still floundering.
The road now tarred
with only the gaping hole
stretching to eternity,
where emptiness boomerangs.

Families gather at the casket,
steel wool voices scrubbing
earth for reason.
Soil he nursed, a paintbrush
crusting in the sun.
Another easel hits the grass.
I think of strokes that never dried,
of stems of yellow daffodils
that wilted from my hoarding
the wishing well.

If this is forward,
leave me in a dreamer's world,
where death is not an acrid mouth
of black and chattering teeth.
I promise you a blind kiss
across map-less hours.
Later is here -- clawing
at tattered screens.

Janet Buck is a five-time Pushcart Nominee and the author of four collections of poetry. Her work has recently appeared in Three Candles, Red River, Pierian Springs, Stirring, PoetryBay, no alibi press, The MAG, Poetry Magazine.com, The American Muse, and hundreds of journals worldwide. In 2002-2003 Buck's poetry is scheduled to appear in Zuzu's Petals Quarterly, Mississippi Review, Artemis, Offcourse, The Montserrat Review, Recursive Angel, The Foliate Oak, Southern Ocean Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Coelacanth, Cordite, CrossConnect, and The Oklahoma Review. She has recently won awards from Kimera, Sol Magazine, L'Intrigue, and Kota Press. For links to more of Janet's poetry, see:
http://members.aol.com/jbuck22874/whatsnew.html
http://www.janetbuck.com

Have comments you'd like to send the author? Please e-mail Janet. I. Buck at: JBuck22874@aol.com  or fill out the form below: