PÈRE LACHAISE, PARIS

by Beth Boylan

we climb up through the cemetery
on the bleakest of mornings,

crossing paths with all the other bundled-up
vultures and crows,

flitting between Chopin and Piaf
hunting and pecking for Jim,

Oscar Wilde buried in lipstick kisses
Gertrude with Alice still hissing wisecracks
from beneath a row of neatly placed stones;

you are an angel,
bearing with me and my book full of Post-Its,

unfamiliar with these scoundrels
yet standing here in reverence anyway

amidst the cracked crosses
and chipped faces of saints,

which distract us for now
from our own cold-hearted sins.

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Beth Boylan loves hiking, reading, and eating cheese. She tries to make sense of the world around her through the written word. Beth teaches high school English and is also an adjunct professor at Brookdale Community College, dividing her time between the Jersey Shore and northern mountains of Georgia.