Memorial Garden

What seed was sown here?

That rows of teeth

Grow slantwise from the ground.

What ligament or root,

What tangle underneath?

If there is breath

It's a lisping bay-breeze,

Or a rap-rapping

Of lately orphaned leaves,

Whose fall and twist

Conjures a clement

mantle all around.

As dust settles and roses hang,

A lone cloud sits like tufted ink,

There's so much toing and froing here,

Shadows in a diorama,

I think,

And there's my mother,

Two years gone now,

Underground.