Morning in the Cemetery
Jarred Thompson
The sun eeks, sober, over the koppie. Stoops
low, through grass, around rock, into dust kicked up by crickets.
Granite, designated in rows, chops the light into teeth
grinning, pale yellow, between minor keys of shadow.
The gates are locked. Fences erect, still. What is there to protect?
Names, carved in stone, or philtrums passed through worms.
Here’s the dutiful line of ants, erasing knees’ imprints.
Here’s varnished wood, left tarnished. The last thing we see must always be
our own shining.
The thorn trees know their burgundy seed sacs are bound for more. Wine skins ripe for bursting.
The new digger on the job, the one who follows the veteran out into early morning,
is somehow already familiar with that soft earth-shoveling sshh..sshh..sssshh—
its own kind of cooing.
JARRED THOMPSON is a writer of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, living and loving in Johannesburg, South Africa. Find Jarred on Twitter @JarredJThompson or on Instagram @poetic_impulse.