Song

    A yellow coverlet 
     in the greenwood: 
spread the corners wide to the dim, stoop-shouldered pines. 
     Let blank sky 
     be your canopy. 
Fringe the bedspread with the wall of lapsing stones. 
     Here faith has cut 
     in upright granite 
"Meet me in Heaven" at the grave of each child 
     lost the same year, 
     three, buried here, 
a century ago. Roots and mosses hold 
     in the same bed 
     mother, daughter, dead 
together, in one day. "Lord, remember the poor,"
     their crumbling letters pray. 
     I turn away. 
I shall meet you nowhere, in no transfigured hour. 
     On soft, matted soil 
     blueberry bushes crawl, 
each separate berry a small, hot globe of tinctured sun. 
     Crushed on the tongue 
     it releases a pang 
of flesh. Tender flesh, slipped from its skin, 
     preserves its blue heat 
     down my throat.