On An Arctic Street

Beside a dusty northern street,

A grim and silent graveyard lies,

Clotted with fading plastic wreaths

And bare-pine Eastern crosses

Sparely carved by skill-less hands.

Keliku-clad children play nearby

On monkey bars and old-tire swings.

Sudden laughter lashes out sharply,

A whip-crack in the thin, cold air,

Darting across the dull green tundra

To impale itself on a parody of flowers

And choke to silence among the graves.

The dark-eyed children do not note

The awful muting of their joy,

Nor the tiny span of struggling green

Between the graveyard and the swing,

Beside a dusty arctic street.