The assignment was to write two poems based on the same event, one for a close, personal audience and the other for a more general audience. I'm not sure if I actually did that or if I just changed who the poem was addressed to.
Mother, do you remember
when you hugged your brother?
Grandma Wiseman was dead,
and rain fell between the gravestones.
Our umbrellas kept us dry,
but your tears wet each others’ backs.
Just a child then, I looked to the ground.
*
Grandma Wiseman was born
before airplanes or world wars,
when the world’s odometer had just
rolled into a fresh century.
She died after another millenium
had been marked out with three zeros,
with airplane crashes and Hiroshima
as well-known milestones.
Father pulled the Honda off the dirt road.
He appreciated the pastor’s soft words,
mother the selections of Scripture.
My brother and I stayed silent in the backseat.
We drove on to the memorial service,
the numbers on the dashboard
counting off the distance.
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