Cemetery of Stars
NEKE CAREY
I stare into my grandmother’s stub-stuffed ashtray
Taken to a place of stars;
My own memories stutter and decay
And I sink into her world, before the wars.
My grandmother, nineteen, standing in the doorway
Of the house scored with battle scars.
Her eyes have not earned wrinkles to display
Yet she smiles with solemn heart, ready to bleed memoirs
Recounting nights now slipped away,
Drinking on the moon. She sang melodies, the boys strummed guitars,
Doe eyed, they begged her to stay
For one more song, a few more cigars.
Then I see her, sitting careful in a wooden chair
Her bones frail, her lungs burned.
She snuffs another stub in the pile, her face shifts to the sky.
I look up too. We smile at the cemetery of stars.
NEKE CAREY
I stare into my grandmother’s stub-stuffed ashtray
Taken to a place of stars;
My own memories stutter and decay
And I sink into her world, before the wars.
My grandmother, nineteen, standing in the doorway
Of the house scored with battle scars.
Her eyes have not earned wrinkles to display
Yet she smiles with solemn heart, ready to bleed memoirs
Recounting nights now slipped away,
Drinking on the moon. She sang melodies, the boys strummed guitars,
Doe eyed, they begged her to stay
For one more song, a few more cigars.
Then I see her, sitting careful in a wooden chair
Her bones frail, her lungs burned.
She snuffs another stub in the pile, her face shifts to the sky.
I look up too. We smile at the cemetery of stars.