In Pursuit of Property

Holidays and Saturdays.
we'd crawl down dirt roads
canopied by branches crossed
like swords at a West Point wedding;
and drive country miles
down gravel and blacktop
lined with Protestant crucifixes,
and fly down I-95,
looking for a few acres
and an old farm house
big enough to hold us all.

His cousin died,
the artist,
the one the other cousins
called a sissy,
a fairy,
behind his back,
and left some money to each,
and they were all a little red-faced.

He hoped to use his
for earnest money.
But while it waited in the bank,
rust set in,
and the doctor, the dentist, the oil man,
and Sears and Roebuck took the rest.

When he died, he owned only
that worm eaten cube of dirt,
set off from all the others,
by its single marble marker,
on which the stonecutter carved
his entire biography,
with just a soupspoon full
of the alphabet.