The Bonery, Naples
By Erin O'Luanaigh - New Haven, Connecticut, USA - 18 August 2014
No small comfort were the white stones
at their feet, shading kindred each from
each like mountain strata which time has
set apart, but custom bonds beneath the
chapel roof of il Monastero di Santa Croce.
These Southerners could not be parted
from their dead like Latins can, casting
mothers past city walls, recalling fathers'
torsos cased in bronze, and stowed.
The South receives its sacraments with
tongues stilted up to the stars, on mingled
bones in a single casket. All is common in
death and life, all steps to and from the font
echo long through this blank headstone.