Susan Cossette

WE ARE ALL EQUAL HERE

My cracked cross gazes at the April sky,

surveys the stern line of towering granite obelisks,

polished, self-important, rising from tall hills.

I memorize your dates, names, and places.

Born in County Cork, County Clare.

Husband of Mary, son of John.

Beloved.

To them I am nameless,

but we are all equal here.

Hunks of my coarse cement,

long chipped from an iron rod thrust in dry earth.

A stranger stood me straight after decades of neglect,

cleared weeds, planted daisies.

Here in the potter’s field, we are all young.

Small stones, small lives.

Helen, Anna, Vincenza, Michael.

They have names.

I know mine.

Someone once whispered it with soft breath,

warm on my cheek before sleep.

Good night my love, dream of silver angels.

I am nameless.

But we are all equal here.

Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she is also also a past recipient of the University of Connecticut's Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, New York Quarterly, Vita Brevis, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Fast Fallen Women (Woodhall Press) Tuesdays at Curley’s (Yuganta Press), and After the Equinox... Full Profile