Mary runs through the open gate

of Mountain View Cemetery

where gravestones envelop

her sweat on a curved road.

In Mountain View, she gapes

upon a downtown skyline.

Stopping on a curved road, she shivers

beside cemetery roses.

Sprinting on, she gapes upon Downtown

Oakland vaulting into a commercial sky

spliced from this cemetery sky

that hosts rose petals

crumbling like concrete.

Mary wants to shake

out this sky’s sorrow.

Gravestone names 

mark where bones crumble

within smoothed wood.

Gravestone names

envelop her sight

over smoothed wood.

Mary runs into an open sky.