The cemetery grounds go weedy and unmown,     

the shared headstone sinking lower in the late-    

summer growth. Below the engraved names       

and dates, what’s under BELOVED HUSBAND     

on the left and BELOVED WIFE on the right         

goes hidden for now in a splash of green blades 

and stems of what, chicory, Queen Anne’s lace, 

yarrow, I don’t know, and can’t quite recreate

the phrases we worked out that are now carved  

into those polished squares, for him something

about how he’d still light our way, and for her

how she’d danced through life, yes that’s close,

but I’m looking past the rows and out through 

the wire fence at the backs of those brick houses

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where I can practically hear people hollering

just like our folks before they moved their bones 

in under this overgrowth, how they’d fill up

a living room, bedroom, or kitchen with bitter

volleys, music we’d finish our homework to,

what they thought they were keeping low after

we’d gone to bed. I’d listen late as if studying

what to anticipate in love’s name. We’re awake

now and they’re not. We’re standing here quiet

enough to hear Darby Creek twenty yards west

and Township Line Road on the far side of those

houses. Some grass and blue flowers do seem

to lean in a swell on the granite with thoughtless

affection. I daydream the dead feel their peace.