MOVING ON

Fellow named Ansel called the other day
from Forest Lawn in Buffalo to say
some cemetery plots had just become
available, and since that’s where I‘m from,
I just might like to come back home to rest
near where my parents lie in urn and chest,
and since cremation’s now the common style,
the trip is cheap. I couldn’t help but smile.

He was, as you’d expect, solicitous,
his manner sober and lugubrious,
yet somehow comforting, until I thought
just how do cemetery plots once bought
“become available”? Have they moved on
who once lay there, and where now have they gone?

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