by Michael Bettencourt

Created on: May 22, 2008

PHOTOGRAPH

A photograph inset into the headstone of Mrs. William Temple, showing her lying at rest in her coffin, rosary beads in her hands, was found by members of her family to have been shot at, stained, and torn over the weekend.

-story in local newspaper-

They had set it there to grace
the memory of one past;
not everything would turn to granite:
their tombstone would have a face.

But the closed mask that rose above
the hands shackled with beads
mocked the open animate eyes
in faces struggling outward,

promised to cool the living that burned them.
Each time the picture is replaced
they will smash it and read
in the glass' broken entrails

an omen of their continuance,
an augury of more.

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