By Northeastern

 

At the street, behind the black jagged fence, the dirt rises

higher than the rest. A new grave. The earth is pummeled, worms

crawling towards the sky, engulfed by air and clouds. A balloon

twists in the wind, a golden 5 masked by the foil flowers

floating with it. I drive by and hope I’m missing the sight

of another number, not wanting a child to have died.

I tell myself the 5 is for the five new mounds, unearthed

by the curbside, and shake the image away. I wave

knowing that they want to be here, to be remembered,

even when they’re trapped beneath cold markings of lives once lived,

want to be loved, warm hearts once beating ‘til their final ba-boom.