I Enter Fifty Cemeteries Looking for My Son
I bring your daughter, too young to grieve, to your grave. We paint your
stone with I Love You words, I Miss You words, eat egg salad
sandwiches in the grass, on top of strangers—I hear their voices
bellowing below. The sun dances on our faces. Beetles crawl on our
legs. We make a normal day into a great day.
We sleep. In a dream, I enter fifty cemeteries alone. My arms spread,
the sky charcoal dust, and I am running between each plot—each soul
tells me their histories: Vietnam War veteran, trophy wife, child with
tuberculosis, firefighter, death row inmate. It goes on until the forest in
the back touches my nose. In another dream, you never died, but I can’t
picture it well.
In wish alone, I am alone by your side. You say, I forgive you. I say, I
must be a horrible mother. You say, No. This is how you lived. This is
how I choose to remember you. I have the pedal to your Indian
motorcycle in my pocket. I place it where your feet must be.
*
Dom Fonce is the author of the two chapbooks Here, We Bury the Hearts and Dancing in the Cobwebs. He holds an MFA from the NEOMFA. His poetry has been published in trampset, Gordon Square Review, Rappahannock Review, Delmarva Review, Jenny Magazine, and elsewhere. He lives and writes in Youngstown, Ohio. Find him at domfoncepoetry.com.
