day of the dead.

i dug a knife into
the ground above
where six relatives
(five, unmet)
rest in levels and layers.
my mother inserted a stick
of weaved palm and
patched the hole
with crumbled earth.
she blessed herself
and touched the stone.
her grandmother's buried here.

earlier,
we bowed heads and winced
at the added name
on her father's wall plot.
she can't caress the lettering
as she'd like, but there is
comfort in knowing
her mother is where she wished
to be for the last twenty years.

my father's brothers are buried
in the same field that pillows my knees.
their separate plots go unvisited;
i think of them as we pass
fresh tilled soil.

i do not speak to the dead.
prayers are memorized and ingrained;
i choose not to speak them.
i am ashamed of my detachment
from death,
from rest,
from all definitions of peace
as i pick the dirt from beneath
my nails.

mom says,
"i know i am the last of a dying breed;
it's just something i have to do."

i am thankful
she wants none of this.