Guadalupe

On the delta, green crops
protect fields from ocean winds
while nine Italian angels defy
marble footings to dance across cemetery lawns. Behind them,
black obelisks mark land reclaimed
by internees who came back, grew old, died.

The graveyard's north half is empty.
These days, everyone, living or dead,
is somewhere else
like topsoil spun in the breeze.

by Barbara Graham Barker