I buried you in the backyard of my soul
In self defense I sang a requiem,
I theorized- what harm could do a hole
If dug by me and filled in at the end?

I held your funeral, mourned cold at your grave.
I sat vigil until the morning light.
And my heart I hardened, should it have forgave
Your absence and distraction, dead as night.

I urged the moss to swallow up the stone
Which said, "Here lies another lightning strike."-
The newness of the wound couldn't condone
The pungence of the churned up soil's bite.

And once the grass had taken, loosely, root,
And from the corner of one's eye the place looked old,
I hurried by, each day and night, a mute-
To make it old my heart I would have sold.

But no matter how stoic I try to be
I find that in my love of you I dwell.
Perhaps I shouldn't've looked so tenderly
Upon your cold face as the spades of soil fell.