MEMORIAL DAYS
We went to visit
Our father’s grave
And immediately
Shrank
To the size of grass seed
That way
We could get way down there
Scrape away for hours
All the bugs & crud & stain on the marker
The next year we returned
With our monstrous bloated bodies
Full of regret & loss & food
This cycle went on every summer
Until those tiny particles of grief died
EVERY JUNE THEREAFTER
An entire year
1957
Slowly rose
From the dust
Of my father’s grave in Omaha
Scattering lilac and Easter lilies
Pint bottles of grape vodka
Bras Incense Pillows
Radios CDs Maps Photos
Gaining speed
Approaching at eye level
The power of gravity
Then accelerating
To the speed of silence
I NEVER READ A NEWSPAPER AS A CHILD
Bombs kept falling out of every sky
Every day for four years
Like pop corn
Submarines exploding
In far corners of the globe
Like bubbles of Coca Cola
Arms & legs
Eyes & skulls & lips
Scattered across seven continents
Like the grass we mowed in Omaha
My POW uncle returned
To show me cigarette burns
Knife wounds
And tell me how he ate a soup
Of spiders ants and roaches
Just like the bugs in your basement
John McKernan – who grew up in Omaha Nebraska in the middle of the USA – is now a retired comma herder after teaching 41 years at Marshall University. He lives in West Virginia and Florida. His most recent book is a selected poems Resurrection of the Dust. He has published poems in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Journal, Antioch Review, Guernica, Field and many other magazines.
Randomly Accessed Poetics 
Another excellent meaningful, personal and universal poem from John McKernan.