Funeral Spring
Two aunts died, in different boroughs,
Within two months of a rainy year.
Summoned up from Washington,
We traversed the Eastern Seaboard’s spine,
A strong vertical, holding together
Cities that might rather slide
Into a blighted rest. In Orange,
West or South, one of the landing lights
For the mass of suburbia
Hurtling towards New York,
A shaggy carpet of marble crosses
Hunched inside a chainlink fence
On both sides of the turnpike.
The second trip up, I made goggles
From my cupped hands, and pressed my eyes
Straight ahead, against the side window:
Before long, the cemetery came and went,
Flickering by fast. It could have been snowfall,
If all you knew of snow were hand-held
Plastic bubbles, each enclosing a monument
Forever drowning, forever besieged
By an agile blizzard of square-cut flakes.
1990
Copyright 2015 Joshua S. Jacobs