You ask if I have seen the lonely fields where The gravestones dot the horizon like birthday candles Celebrating another year of death The sun was set on fire by the grass that You set on fire when you said it was time to celebrate Another year alive with a beer and a box of matches That sounds like fun, like a day at the beach Like that time the moon was blacked out When we leaned against your’68 to see the stars The city lights never fade when the last cigarette Goes out like I thought they would since it was The ashes glowing inches from your lips that burned brightest The birthday candles were brightest when my parents Turned out the kitchen lights and let me blow out The cake that never tasted like I thought it should If my favorite collie is buried by my house They’ll have to move my stone bench to lay him Six feet below but I doubt they’ll go that deep Only my mother was set to rest that far down Where worms and microbes pretend they can play Like toddlers among the dead That tree where the swing lolled in the summer gaze Of my sister laughing at the kids from down the road Trying to climb its rope to the top where they’d fall No one ever fell from the top and cracked their skull On the knots peeking out of the grass and Sitting like trolls frozen at high-noon Quick-Draw always made a fool of himself Before I had a popsicle and lemonade With Billy, the kid whose dad was a veteran We climbed the hill to get a better look At the baseball diamond where the older boys Spat and slapped their gloves and kicked at the sand Then we turned and went back home, back Down the hill past a couple of trees that You said reminded you of lions because of their golden leaves There was no road to follow from the hill To my house but we made our way sure enough By the sunset dragonflies’ humming and hunting Then, in the end, we came home and had another Drink of lemonade and snack of animal crackers Before you had to go down the road to go to bed Yes, the field does burn like a cigarette when the moon is gone When the dragonflies stop buzzing, I can see through the Trees the stars, like birthday candles, guiding me to my grave