The legendary dead live on
in yearbooks of small town
high schools, black framed faces
airbrushed of acne, their eulogies

woven from the warp of truth,
the woof of exaggeration. Who
knew the girl that died of leukemia
swung snakes like lariats

and writhed with the fever
of Jesus on Sunday. Or the quiet boy
in the dark tie and starched shirt
whose head was sheared clean

from his neck one night when he drove
drunk under an oncoming semi.
Who knew he spent
his last hour throwing ten-dollar bills

at an old stripper named
Miss Cherry Blossom. Who knew
he laughed when she picked
them up in the crack of her ass.

Who knew how bad blood
cells multiply and gang up
on the good ones. Who knew
about Pavlov’s dog, the tuning fork

and the promise of food. We lit
cigarettes and drove reckless
without seat belts. We screwed
without condoms and didn’t

think twice about that bruise
on our leg, the arteries to our
hearts silting up with grease.
We bent over a light table

framing photos in small coffins
of black tape to honor
the legendary dead about
whom we knew nothing.

It’s late and the woman one cell over
is finally quiet. Awake, she’s at war
with life, that motherfucker, fights
sleep when it threatens to take her down
for the night, struggling
and punching the thin sheets
to keep what she imagines is hers.
The guard says it’s snowing
—a real sonofabitch to drive in—
a foot already and more to fall.
Our first date, your father
drove to the K Mart parking lot
and carved figure eights
in the new snow. I sat
in the passenger’s seat and said
go faster because I liked
how his biceps looked
under his flannel shirt
when he yanked
the steering wheel
and made that car obey him.

I should tell you
everyone’s innocent
in here. Guilt
is a nametag we wear
for therapy sessions, crumple up
and discard on the way out.
We sit in a circle and drink
bitter coffee, tell stories
that scald the tongue.
The day you were born
you felt like a bowl
of hot pasta the doctor
spilled on my stomach.
The nurse said your baby
is beautiful but she was wrong.
You looked like Eisenhower,
and you were never mine,
just something I might
have borrowed for a while.

I am the gravedigger, the minister, sole mourner
in attendance. What to say about the dead, fur
burrito, glazed eyes lowered to half mast, necklace
of blood beading your throat? I should have done
what others did, jogged by you with barely a glance,
gone on about my day. Lacking a shovel I use
my hands to scoop the ground still softened
by this morning’s rain, hardly deep enough
to call a hole but grave enough to keep
the crows from dinner.

At home, I rinse the dirt from my hands
watch it puddle and swirl down the drain.
Death, I am done with you for now.