across from the boneyard.
if you look to your left,
ladies and gentlemen,
you’ll see the tombstone shop,
the lacquered memorials
bright in the late-summer sun.
with one of these
be-yootiful
headstones, your loved one
will be remembered
with dignity and distinction.
on the right,
the little town’s boneyard,
where the grass is mown,
but the fence is rotting and
falling down,
and the tombstones are weathered
and unadorned.
the windbreak is untrimmed
and speckled with holes.
when it is winter
and the ice blows in from the
north
it will encounter no defense—
no stand of life against
indifference.
i'm okay with this one, but i don't think it's that technically good. i might try writing different versions in different tones, because i think the subject matter/concept has a lot to offer. like, consider the same basic premise, but more focused on who had the audacity to build a tombstone shop yet, citing as examples the graveyard never leaving customers' peripheral vision, seeing their future at every moment in the shop. consider also the absurdity of loading up a tombstone at the appropriate time and driving it across the street to its new home. or if they took customers window shopping in the actual graveyard. "ah yes, the michaelsons. this was a very special piece-- i worked on it myself-- why, that must have been way back in seventy-four. anyway, the red granite really is such a rich and beautiful color, don't you agree?" the trick will be to focus only on the absurd features of gritty, everyday life in this place. if i'm lucky and i do it right, the cosmic statements will take care of themselves.
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