Every Headstone

2025

A graveyard is being built in my backyard and

they etched my name on every headstone,

Some of them I recognize, but some of them are names that sit in my chest like an anvil,

and I don’t know which me I am grieving,

but I grieve them nonetheless,

One sounds like my daughter, one my son,

one myself, one someone else,

I let them use my bathroom if they ask and

offer a jar of water for a toast to uncertainty

(not because I’m really taking care of myself)

(This is the only me that cares).

— ODH