Burying the Twins
This article was originally published on
The Poetry Explorer
Jim Varney looked for days
for the perfect stone
in the creek bed. He was twenty-one,
wore the Navy’s dress-blues as he waded
barefoot in the water he’d often skipped stones across.
He sanded the rock smooth,
chiseled the names –
Larry Gene, David Dean.
placed it himself at the single grave
in the Stringtown graveyard
where all his people are buried.
Removed the earth, the rusted clay
Sorted out roots,
placed the two boys
so mall they fit in his palms
into the soil.
His boys
Pink already perfectly formed
fingernails had those tiny moons,
they already had his dark hair,