I.
Painted eyes on wood
set still in time like a
gravestone etched with
words telling of a life lived and
gone, now just a memory that sits
like this doll on a shelf,
without use but a presence,
a gift from someplace far away
that I’ve never known and will
never know except through
smirks that says she’s
hiding something, there’s
something we don’t know.
II.
A small crowd gathers
around a wooden casket
across the street, there’s
a funeral at the church with
boarded windows and
No Trespassing signs.
The church is of no service
anymore, no singing can be heard
from inside the brick walls and
grave stones stoop
in the grass out back, some with
plastic flowers worn from
winds and rains.
III.
But at the funeral no one looks sad
because they know they are giving
the Lord a gift today, a gift they will
deliver in boxes.
I hear the sounds of tractor
and there is a slight mishap
lowering the casket straight
down, straight into the protective
granite box like nesting dolls,
a box then
a box then
surprise!
The gift is
the littlest one, the little man
stone cold, perhaps smiling and
dreaming of salvation.
