By Danton Remoto
The walls round the graveyard
Are ancient and cracked.
The moss is too thick they look dark.
The paint on my grandfather’s tomb
Has the color of bone.
Two yellow candles we lighted,
Then we uttered our prayers.
On my left, somebody’s skull
Stares back at me: a black
Nothingness in the eyes.
The graveyard smells of dust
Finer than the pore of one’s skin—
Dust mixed with milk gone sour.
We are about to depart
When a black cat darts
Across our path, quickly,
With a rat still quivering
In its mouth.