Photo by Sincerely Media
Six
The recommended distance
from one’s breathe to another’s,
with a mask of simple cloth
and the space of open air our shield.
The distance in miles from home
to that remembered place,
sectioned and sheltered by trees, but
cluttered and clotted with stones.
The enforced distance at the site,
guided by small, blue markers
spiked into hard but giving soil
beneath the tamped-down grass.
The number still allowed to watch
a slow and somber lowering,
six times six around the hole,
trying to square the circle of grief.
And last, a clichéd measurement
of downward motion into
earthen dark—around us now
we always keep the space of graves.
First Published by Blood and Thunder, a Literary Journal of the U. of Oklahoma Medical School, Fall 2021 (16-19).
The Author
Vincent Casaregola teaches American literature and film, creative writing, rhetorical studies, and composition at Saint Louis University. Recently, he has published poetry in a number of journals, including The Bellevue Literary Review, The Examined Life, Natural Bridge, WLA, Dappled Things, 2River, Work, Lifelines, and Blood and Thunder. Some time ago, he had published creative nonfiction in New Letters and The North American Review.