Message from a Grave

"|... His Wife, Anne Truitt, d. Nov 20 1853, aetat 26"

Husband: when you turn aside, even these stones

Will cry out, for now I have become them;

And the roses you handed down, as though

Over my breast-I could ask their thorns to tear

At your fond smile. If ever there was laughter

From my mouth, it has turned filth; and what flows

Through my eyes now, is not tears... .

The wind hauls

Your voice away, yet I beg the distance between us

For nothing-and who, even crammed with prayer,

Would bend for love as far down as my face:

Its thick nest of veins, its flesh and sinew

Burned black over the bluish jawbone?

Husband,

Wallow your grief as beast in sty; for I

Am second nature now, and from my arms

Opening, pushing upward to the terrible

Light-regard this stone,

Glistening, conceive the relentless rain.