You'll Stand At My Graveside (after Mary Elizabeth Frye).

by Philip F. Clark

You will stand at my graveside weeping, 

and recall with intermittent eyes some
seeping memory, some lark and laugh,
some weather or color; some curse.
But for all your fragile grasps at looking 
you will not see me.

You'll remember a bed, a movie, the clothes
that fell quickly when you said, "kiss me,"
"Tell me." And neither 
the slow disrobe of pants and shirt
or honesty -- were bartered for love.
You were skin and so was I.

I was -- what? -- an interim; some waiting room
where wishes were kept and carved
among craven stones: lips and kiss
are impediments now to what was then
desire. Sometimes too much is said
of what is past. 

Don't throw earth on bones.