Dead Relatives

Without a map, I found headstones of grandparents I never met in a cemetery I’ve never been to

because, I suppose, I am magical and can amaze, or they were

Their welcome was warmer than conversations with anyone I know alive

They grew moss in their names like a hobby

I felt their guilt when they realized I thought we shared a bond beyond the bones all bodies have in common

They lay there, shoulder to shoulder, side by side

Parents at the center, children who died before them on the left, a brother on the right

The children who died after- lost in the ether, as if by dying in the right order they’d earned the right to leave and forget

Dead relatives excel when they remind you how and where you don’t belong, when they make you aware of your empty hands

How insignificant anatomy becomes when grass grows where a sentient soul no longer is

All those soft bits in the soil, nowhere and everywhere, all at once, alone, together

A planted thing does not always grow, sometimes it is only stone