What is this graveyard but where we came
      with our papers and stubs of charcoal,
      to catch the image of their names
      and dates, homework for a field trip?

      What is this cemetery but home
      to kids who mostly never lived past four?

      A child was pushed out nearly
      every year by this mother Sandra Collins,
      ‘dearest mother’, 1848-1869.
      Four little plots lie close to hers.
    
      What is this graveyard  
      but where my parents lie,
      the earth their blanket?

      What is this graveyard but my future
      whose emptiness I can never
      quite cover up with mere grass?

      Where I came last year to place dahlias
      in Mom’s vase, and to talk with her…

      I ache even now for her voice
      which I no longer can recall.
      What’s this graveyard but a reminder
      of what’s missing from my life,
      and how I too one day
      will be missed?