Bury Your Love

Something was buried here,

Though what, I can’t recall.

Despite how deeply I dig,

I find nothing there at all.

This hardened clay-and-soil mixture

Showed no sign of upheaval.

The long years left no markings,

Whether they were good or evil.

For fifteen years the dirt lay smooth,

Beneath the underbelly of the porch

In my childhood’s back yard

Where I’m holding an electric torch.

Thin sunlight slices through

The slats of wood overhead,

And grass grows in yellow strips,

Where earthworms bury their dead,

Where raindrops slip through,

(Along with spills from the dog bowl)

Time has also buried

The thing which I stole.

There’s a musty smell under here,

The air stale as bone dust,

The thin fingers of light

Turning it amber with lust.

It feels gritty on my tongue,

And I feel the urge to spit.

The sun sets as I dig,

But still I can’t quit.

A large AC unit

Hums along nearby,

And through echolocation,

I see the yard from up high.

I see the old barren sandbox,

And the off-season mulberry tree,

Its chubby arm draped over the fence,

Like a nosy neighbor, trying to see.

I try again to remember

The nature of the buried thing,

But my brain can only conjure

The joy that made me sing

As I placed it all alone

In the hole I had dug,

Then covered it up,

Packing the dirt in real snug.

It was the first time I chose

To take part in sin.

Before, only crimes of passion

Were taken part in.

This was premeditated,

I wanted to do it,

I plotted it out

And lied my way through it.

I remember the force

That drove me to steal it,

The need to make it mine,

Yes, I can still feel it.

But the need to make it last-

Something to forever stay-

To make it eternal,

I surrendered it to the clay.

It was buried fifteen paces

From my childhood window,

But there’s no map I could have made

That I wouldn’t outgrow.

The thing itself was cheap,

I could have bought one just fine,

What made it desirable

Was that it wasn’t mine.

It wasn’t the value that mattered,

It was the principle of the thing,

And maybe that’s why I can’t remember

What I stole for the sting.

I never would have thought

I’d let myself forget

A shame and pleasure so primal –

And the bait that I bit.

I look now at my nails,

And the red crescents they carry,

And wonder what else

I’ve loved enough to bury.