Arlington County, 1953

Once as a child you believed the graveyard shift

meant whole cemeteries uprooting themselves &

passing like ghosts through cities

to some other hills

that would accept them as they were,

would take them in

with the grace of an unhinged door.

You loved as well as anyone.

Better than a mortician,

with your softness of throat & unending want.

The way your blood sang in all octaves

like the wings of a sparrow

still curled in sleep.

Meggie Royer is a writer and photographer from the Midwest who is currently majoring in psychology at Macalester College. Her poems have previously appeared in Words Dance Magazine, The Harpoon Review, Melancholy Hyperbole, and more. She has won national medals for her poetry and a writing portfolio in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and was the Macalester Honorable Mention recipient of the 2015 Academy of American Poets Student Poetry Prize. Selected by Yasmin Belkhyr.

Image © Alex Bellink via Flickr Creative Commons.