Immortal Child

Dear great-grandmother’s grave, surrounded by
grey beneficiaries of her long
gone bliss, and his, now echoes with the slow
and somber intonation of the psalm.
The witnesses to her mortality,
displaying just enough grief and no more,
uneasy in their uniform of black,
observe with dusty eyes the obsequies.
Except the restless twitch of well-turned wrists
to check the time, they seem absorbed, transfixed.
No stifled sobs; no softly murmured prayer.
No mournful frowns; just anxious bitten lips.
Meanwhile, the heiress plays between the plots
and plucks the buttercups that flower there.
The tot ignores the holy rites. Upon
her face there blooms a Giaconda smile.


from Sailor in the Rain and Other Poems
© 2007 Denis M. Garrison

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