Reward
by David Bart


Here lies Pizza
the sweetest boy who ever lived

Buddha
Taboo
Mischief on marble stone

Silhouette and Lambchop
in a family plot
semper fi Toy Boy

Dynamite you broke our hearts
Pepper taught me to walk again
grave marked with a cement
bird bath and gold tennis trophy

Precious Hill was raised up
if tears could build a stairway
epitaph stenciled on a yard sale sign

Mister Bandit mixed breed
Christmas Snow in a section just for cats
Chigger full-blooded chihuahua

a greater voice than mine called
Wowee come home
plots are now available
between U-Store-It
and Truck Driver Safety School

we know he understood
written in black magic
marker on the sandwich bag
wrapping our blue parakeet
placed in the green dumpster
beyond these gates.






Copyright © 2024 by Red River Review. First Rights Reserved. All other rights revert to the authors.
No work may be reproduced or republished without the express written consent of the author.