BRIEF LIVES

1. Gardening in the Tropics, you never know
2. what you'll turn up. Quite often, bones.
3. In some places they say when volcanoes
4. erupt, they spew out dense and monumental
5. as stones the skulls of desparecidos
6. – the disappeared ones. Mine is only
7. a kitchen garden so I unearth just
8. occasional skeletons. The latest
9. was of a young man from the country who
10. lost his way and crossed the invisible
11. boundary into rival political territory.
12. I buried him again so he can carry on
13. growing. Our cemeteries are thriving too.
14. The newest addition was the drug baron
15. wiped out in territorial competition
16. who had this stunning funeral
17. complete with twenty-one-gun salute
18. and attended by everyone, especially
19. the young girls famed for the vivacity
20. of their dress, their short skirts and
21. even briefer lives.