Yorick

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A cold spell 
for my desecration 
slipped upward from your grave. 

Some ceremony attended you: 
pinyon bead, arrowhead, 
broken pottery and bone— 

only your empty sockets 
saw that this was all vanity. 
Your epitaph faded 

on the wall above you: 
a fleeing antelope, 
meaning hunger, flesh, struggle; 

a weeping god, 
meaning wisdom, purity, loneliness; 
three handprints, open and empty, 

meaning gone, gone, gone. 
My civility was lost 
in the subtle shock of history. 

Wild again, I felt mortality 
in everything: the scratch 
of sagebrush, the desolation 

of cattle fences, the low swoop 
of the red-tailed hawk. 
I grabbed your skull 

and asked, “Is it fast? 
Is it too fast? 
Did anyone notice 

you had lived?” 
“Shhh,” you answered, 
as sand fell through your teeth.