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Robert Klein Engler

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Deep South

‘Video meliora, proboque: deteriora sequor.’ —Ovid

The graveyard across from the railroad
station in Hammond, Louisiana has tombs
above and below ground. The dead repose

regardless there while we breathe the heavy
air of passing and feel on our arms the press
of sunlight and the fecund caress of humidity.

We want to take off our shirts, lie down
in the grass and watch the sparrows fly from
Myrtle to Myrtle. This is how I love you,

with my body, even though we are so close
to bones, so close to the release of debts
and the rust that eats at our foolish affairs.

After all these years it is a simple consent
to see the point of desire is at first natural,
like an open cottage where the dirt road ends,

and then a short prayer like the green prayer
of the cypress trees that set their gothic grip
in mud, to grow upwards as if they forgive.

Page(s) 53

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