Concrete Angel

Becky plants a red
   silk rose
in the fold of the
   angel's robe

and shoots a rain
scarred cheek and
   archaic smile

against Grandfather
   Mountain,
cedars and a cyclone

fence with strand of
   barbwire
like greenbrier thorns.
   I snap

headstones splotched
with lichen and stark

granite markers in the
   grass -- Mother,
Father, and a molar-
   white 

stone with Ba chiseled
on a broken half. Whose

baby sleeps beneath
   that severed
word? Whose loved
   ones

rest in this small
   mountain
graveyard where bones

crumble to nothing? Who
will grieve for us?

            -- Beth Copeland