Elegy

In daylight's fastidious oppression -96 degrees and rising- Black beetles scuttle about the smooth marble.
With incestuous airs, their midnight claws diggings, clicking
In time to the silent hum of a parked car.
(The lot was empty, the clergy departed, save for one.)
Back and forth across a marble slab, they roam with monastic intent.

Fresh dirt allowed for their entrance,
Their escape,
As Claude, with sorghum bristles, sweeps them aside,
Down and away from the white polished stone.
Striped trousers of a hand-me-down suit disguise his practiced hand.
The low hum of a second-hand sedan pervades the space.
He coughs and digs in his pocket.
He knows not why the beetles  choose to congregate.
He knows only that this is hallowed ground.
He knows only of hallowed, hollow ground.

A brief moment passes.
His eyes light up, wrinkling as he smiles.
In a practiced motion, cracked fingers close around a scrap of paper.

Withdrawing a trembling hand, he parts his lips to speak, to read.
~
A young man shuffles quickly between the modest memorials, white picket crosses, and dried 10 cent roses.
Uncertain feet and uncertain hands guide him across Necropolis,
As unwavering eyes render him in three point perspective,
Only to disappear with a hurried stride.

With rehearsed strides, he guides his frame to a granite bench.
A practiced hand tosses a bouquet of poppies, red and off-white, to a distended epitaph.

He sits in silent, shallow breaths,
As full-bodied graves churn and wallow in their infinitesimal yearning,
Their infirm, infinite yearning.
The low hum of a faded blue sedan pervades the space.

A brief moment passes. 
His ears perk up as he hears a voice.
The words are foreign, yet familiar to the scene.
A familiar tremble, and mockingbird's grace
As the wrinkles catch tears upon his face-

"Adieu, adieu, mon amour, adieu!"

Among the marble mausoleum highrises, his voice echoes of a plaintiff's cries.