We were alone, her and I,
gravediggers beyond a mound or two,
several hundred yards east of us,
everyone had gone, and the gates were locked
at the entrance of Oakland Cemetery,
(they lock the gates at 5:30 PM sharp).
She had a bag; it had weight to it,
She looked at me, as a wolf would to it prey,
if ever faces showed imminent death, hers did!
Then I noticed her crucifix was upside down,
I look towards the gravediggers, they were gone,
yet I could hear the sound of their last footsteps.
I pulled out a flashlight from my jacket pocket,
it was fall, and a chill was in the evening air, it
would be dark soon, near winter, the sun has
a menial task, it rises quick, and descends fast.
The contents of her bag, seemed to wiggle
as if something was alive in it, a rounded shape.
“Let’s do what we came for,” she said, knees
bending, a groan from her inner spirit, noisily
making her head twitch, like a puppet.
For a moment I thought she was carrying a bomb,
I heard a whisper come from the bag, as she started
digging next to a gravestone, on her knees, with
a pocket shovel, one normally used for a garden.
“Is this really necessary?” I asked her.
“Just wait a while and you shall see, and judge
for your self…” she groaned, as her face grew
hard, as she looked at the bag moving slightly.
I had met her the night before, we strolled drunk
down Summit Avenue, in St. Paul, Minnesota,
walking though old mansions, folks unbelievably
would forget to lock their doors, and she knew this,
and in the last house we walked through, a woman came
beautiful as a painting, she came out of a side room
asked what we were doing in his home, and she said,
“We’re lost,” and she just looked amazed at us,
and we left. And that was that, and now this.
At this point, she was turning into to waking nightmare,
and all she really was, was a pretty and shapely…girl
I had met, at a dance, who wanted to have company,
so we drank, and you know the rest, and here we were,
her stimulating and bracing for some kind of a thrill,
silently and quietly next to twilight.
I told myself, there would be no to-morrows with her.
My body shuddered from her witch and devilish scorn
she seemed to have for the dead— “What are you doing,”
I asked inquisitively, and she whispered in a most
horrid voice (with a vibrating echo) as if it was not
her: “Digging a tomb!” the voice replied.
“For what or whom?” I asked, holding my breath.
And she pointed to the sack… and she then
opened it, inside was a living head, and she said
“I can’t kill it!” And she rolled it out, and into the dirt
grave, then stood up, strolled about it, as if insane
(it was that lady we had seen from the house).
Thus, as she paced, she kept out of its way, observing it.
Then Sara cried: “Foul head, of the demon, loathing
nightmare, voluptuous bloodstained mouth, lay where
you be.” And the head looked up at me, as if it wanted
to plead. Then Sara said to me, “Come now, my friend,
let her rest in peace, I can do no more, this is all
Death Love can offer; I can’t kill it, she belongs to
the un-dead, she has immortality, but I can keep her
head from her body, so she can no longer, multiply—
or go back to her evil world.”