When I buried you, the moonlight cried.
It was dark as hopelessness.
I buried you in the forest behind your farm,
where owls watched my ceremony.
It was dark like grandmother’s Amish dress,
and my spade was simple
as grandfather’s half-beard.

I buried you at night, so no one
could find your bodies
when they went to auction your farm.
They were going to dump your bodies in a common plot
used for beggars. I could get in trouble for this;
this act for unretrievable love.

You died a day part, and now I had taken this task
of honoring the dead. My spade was a prayer,
my sweat the psalms, my arms aching with grief.

I made your coffins.
I had carved pictures of your favorite items.
The chisel was the memory of hand-plowing,
making use of God’s creation. Each curl
of wood was milk being squeeze into a pail.
Sawdust was my tears.

I buried you, unable to express grief.
Besides, grandfather would have scolded me
for saying more than I needed to say,
and grandmother would say,
kind acts needed kind hands.

I buried you where bankers couldn’t find you.
Out where forests blend in every hidden secret.
I buried you. I kept my secrets
like the coffins I had nailed together.

I buried you. I buried my sorrow
where even leaves in wind
cannot spread your secrets,
your secret burial site, laying side-by-side
like in permanent beds.

I buried you in my heart and memory,
where no one can exhume your bodies,
where no one can take you away.