I Don't Visit My Mother's Grave

I don't visit my mother's grave;

a stone, a church yard;
these are my sister's symbols,
not mine.

I keep my mother in my head,
all the spirit of her,
a mother alone,

and all the consequences
when she couldn't really cope
with bringing up a thinking boy
she didn't understand.

We needed my father,
whom fate destroyed.

I don't visit my mother's grave:
I carry it.

This poem has been accepted for publication in the summer edition of Inclement.