The Olympic of mourners, fairing black as answers,

arch the cemetery like a secret garden of winter,

turning all death into a plate for life else where -

every scorned leaf, every jewelled web, every moss on shovel -

is a man standing.

Every brittle breeze, a prayer. Every stone, philosophy.

Every death, a marriage.

Every hearse is hoarse and every buckling sob is an architect

for the After-People; the spirits

crueling clinging to your heart with opaque hands and memories of steel

that ignores the burns and embalms the love like it is God.

The coffin lowers

and you are there too.