Out the door I dash, on my way to school

dodging all the stones like a football fool.

 

Jumping some and running round others

I clear them all and charge toward brothers.

 

We join each other and wait for the bus.

As we enter, the driver tells us to stop the fuss.

 

The same driver drops us off in the afternoon —

we feel the time couldn’t come too soon.

 

Books in hand and weary to the bone;

I trudge past a rock which is a headstone.

 

The books slip and fall to the ground;

I stub my toe, bend down, look and frown.

 

The stone of Swedish granite is hard;

my father’s business is in our yard.

 

I live in a graveyard; the inscription I’ve read.

It says my father’s name and that he is dead.

 

It didn’t happen in reality exactly that way,

but it might just as well have been that fateful day.

 

I’ve been haunted by sudden death since running

past gravestones, wondering when another is coming.

 

Another came and even though in the past,

it haunts me still and so each day I ask,

 

as I continue to run past family headstones,

if others run with me or if, ultimately, I run alone?