In Loving Memory

The stone idols of our ancestors lie face-down across the graves they were made to watch over. Lips worn whistle-thin by the corrosive breath of engines seek relief in the soil, where perhaps the live wires of nematodes might revive them, or ivy cover them with feathers that actually move.

Only a few feet down the crowd awaits, growing more anonymous by the year. Perhaps they can reach those winter trees through dissolution, like stalactites. They shape the darkness in their own image: a mask of dirt, a vessel, a full breast.