“Afternoon in the Cemetery.” A Poem by Asa Drake

 under loblolly pines

I don’t believe in hallowed ground, but I like that border control
doesn’t come here. It’s smelling season. I’m staring
at the wide eagles’ nest because I would like an illegal feather,
when a woman’s dog growls at my arrangement
low in the grasses. She says her dog never barks, so I avert my eyes
from the fledglings above. Like a secret
just past the blackberries’ five-pointed stars, I could love this place
if I didn’t know the reason for it.

under cherry blossoms 

I’m a tourist. I debate whether the citizen star
on my ID is sufficient so close to the border.
In the end, I don’t board a ferry to cross. I touch the end
of my hairpin to feel secured by what’s expensive. I text a loved one
on the other end of the sound. Maybe I write an apology,
though to whom, it’s too early to tell. To a friend, I admit,
given a second opportunity I’d record all my English
in italics. A formal decentering to ensure my mother’s speech
is roman. The alternative document would offer
a shared experience, a poem that’s of the world
but a world that’s better for me. Of course you don’t love it.

under coastal redwoods

Perhaps a poem can be better than the world
because of my obsessions. On weekends, after Mom bought
her first house, we’d watch The Crow, a movie in which the star
is Asian and white. My mother liked to point out which characters
I could grow into. “Not the Crow,” she’d tell me
after Brandon Lee’s last scene. I wonder how it is for others.
Mothers say, come visit, lovers say
come home, enemies say, go home. The line I remember
from the movie is not central to the story.

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