The car wash down the block

The car wash down the block

is a bright, electric hum

throwing spills of lime-green light

across the cemetery lawn.

It hits the wet granite

of a man named Arthur,

turning his dates into a chemical blur.

The iron pikes of the gate

look like a ladder,

now that the streetlights are dead.

I walk past in the dark

watching the foam and the spray

clean a stranger's stone

from a hundred yards away.