It’s called Decoration Day, / when all the kinfolks gather / to tend the final resting places / of relatives already gone home.
That sounds kind of odd, / as if the dead had any say / in going or staying — / along the way, maybe, but not in the long run.
We who are left behind / are the ones with the choices — / not to live or die, / but to remember or forget those others.
Decorations of all kinds — / unlike dates chiseled in granite — / are ephemeral, / for even fine silk flowers finally fade.
What stands is the old fence / of locust posts and barbed wire / that turns worst memories away / so our best ones stay.