by Carol Schoen
The cemetery cowers
in a corner of the office
park. Bought long ago
by immigrants uncertain
of eternity
it holds many neighbors,
my parents, the family doctor,
my aunt and her demented
husband, a teenage friend
whose presence always shocks me.
I check to see if the lawn
has been mowed, if the dead
juniper bush has been replaced.
A hole in the ground announces
a coming funeral. I do not
recognize the name. Finally
I go to my parents and stare
down at their gravestone, blankly.
Carol Schoen wrote her first poems for Sarah White’s study group and has been chugging along happily ever since.