A gentle rain, a cavalcade
has split my thoughts along their seams.
An arcing path of barricades
Was layered strangely in my dreams.

Patterning the open ground,
the droplets reassure the space.
The floor of water flows around
where dirt and pavement alternate.

My fathers’ hands were buried stumps,
the dirt imprinted onto them.
I stepped along the newest lump.
Like glass, I saw the form of him.

Like bone, his dripping headstone shined,
like doom, he hung about my head.
Like planet earth, he churned my mind,
and lo my mother, too, was dead.

Her frailty affixed to me,
and mingled with the smell of death.
The lips that could not comfort me
moved with maggots, not with breath.

I pull my glasses from my face
To wipe the errant paths away.
Oh, Mother Mary, full of grace,
please stay until my dying day.