Notes to a Testament

I told them I would dance on graves only if the weather was right & if the rain was light enough & slid down my arms like honey. This is a not pastime for the frivolous, those "ill at ease" with the sound of such steps, the travesty of such rhythms as the auburns slacken on the hillside. Empty tombs upon which I dance which reverberate to the side-step, the Newport skip, the shreds of a mazurka remembered from childhood days when the family maid rolled through a few numbers on the Wurlitzer in the living room as the lace curtains billowed & Mother was in bed, nursing the fever that accompanied her soul like a shadow in each of its debilitated permutations. Hollow as the music of this earth. When the dirt beneath your shoes clouds in the headlights fanning out over the nameless graves, the lanky grass, the path that leads to the gated white house. Sing
the music of this earth, nervous son, as the rain beautiful beyond any memory bounces off the stones.