Crossing highway one
at dawn, she shuts her eyes.
Think of her as Chronos.
Think of her as Carrion.
She sleeps standing up,
eats only seed,
gives fearsome little
smiles with her teeth
remembering our electric
skin, how we moved through
days cramming them in:
starving in a field of berries.
Honoring us, the newly
satisfied, the recently
out of time, she ties her
dandelion hair in chiffon
and walks to Plainview
where she touches stone
shoulders attentive at last.
You’re old longer than
you’re young and dead longer
than that. This is her calling.
She hears us calling. She’d
crawl from the cemetery home
to care for her old children
gone. She minds her steps
through our lengths and widths,
goes quietly to the business
of tucking us in, trimming
the yards with stubborn shears
breaking up clods of dirt
with her hands, and straightening
the waxed carnations on shaky
legs, her weather-beaten
chorus still poised to sing
you’ll miss everything.