Boden Lane Cemetery

 

Faded black lettering peels like birch bark

away from the old white sign

nothing left but shadows and 1812.

A crumbling rock wall held together by clinging ivy

stands like a sentry. I slip between

a granite pillar and a rusty iron gate.

 

Moss gives way to bare feet, spongy and damp.

Acorn caps crackle; overgrown grass rustles

in the breeze. Headstones drifted

out of their rows and columns

crumbling, sinking, broken

like souls who were lost as time wore away their names.

 

The air, redolent with summer, lay heavy

with the weight of its ghosts.

Crickets echo the fife and drum.

Mists rise like dawn on the battlefield, and I see

the ragtag, worn out Patriots of our freedom.

 

I barely stifle a scream and duck

when the first shot rings out.

A car backfires—

suddenly,

I’m just a kid in an old cemetery

playing truth or dare.