Meadows of Dan Baptist Church Cemetery

The summer rain is plum wine on my tongue

A worm crawls around my fingers like

A ring, as if

This earth can promise itself to me.

I dig clay into my fingernails

Press weeds into my knees like flowers into glass

Your name into my thumb is

The perfect handprint.

They buried you in carved pine

Weak enough for dandelions

To carve into

For pill bugs to hide in uniform pockets.

I knot my knuckles in chickweed

close my eyes

and know

This meadow is made

Of you.