Unmarked

A year has passed: by tribal law, the time
to mark your corpse’s plot of ground, as if
stone, incised, could yield relief; or cleft
of rock detain the mind beyond demise
of flesh. Still, custom demands rocks,
and relatives press, for piety’s sake, that I
comply, as you did not when mother died
half my life ago. Inscriptions cannot
undo the dirt of death, you said. My child
mind reeled at clumps of gunk in her eyes,
rooty tendrils inching up her nose . . .
Of course, such old pathetic fallacies
and missing headstones don’t bother me
now. Cold bones don’t care where weeds grow.