DC PLACES ISSUE
Greg McBride
OVER ARLINGTON CEMETERY
On takeoff, rows of soldier's stones parry
memory, and warring wives lie buried
beside their men in recompense. The storied
combat, Custis-Lee Mansion, columbary
and marbled ranks, my mother and father
farther down the gentle slope. I imagine
them lying uneasy together deep in
their plot as, she faced one way, he the other,
in bed at home. My guess is she hasn't moaned
a word these thirty years of rest, even mulled
a drink, but he's suffering without a ball
to hit, or her heart to call his own,
just as it was above ground, where she's won:
her name south, his name north, from one stone.
Greg McBride's work appears in 32 Poems, The American Poetry Journal, Adirondack Review, and The Gettysburg Review. A 2005 Pushcart Prize nominee, he edits the Innisfree Poetry Journal (www.innisfreepoetry.org).
Published in Volume 7, Number 3, Summer 2006.
More by this author:
Greg McBride: Audio Issue
Greg McBride: Poets in Federal Government Issue