Produced by Dennis Camire

This week’s poem is by Megan Grumbling of Portland and is from her book “Booker’s Point,” which won the Vassar Miller Prize.

 

Through North Berwick’s Cemetery

By Megan Grumbling 

 

Good mornin’, Scheib! yells Booker to the graves,

like George to Gracie, as we roll in. Scheib,

that Scheib, the man done everything – sold life

insurance and he swore like a pirate.

We’re here to water Mamie’s mums. Forgot

’em for a week; they’re prob’ly dead. As dirt

winds us around the plots, linking our route

between geraniums, sod, autumn earth,

we can’t spot Horace Mills, who hasn’t moved

in years. As if enlivened by the dead man’s wiles,

like Scheib’s foibles still vital, still pursued,

still Booker keeps at keeping things alive.

There’s still a little green here, anyway.

Pours water from a milk jug, soaks the grave

 

Dennis Camire can be reached at dcamire@cmcc.edu