Mayor’s wife—St. Martin de Vers

The sun shone, white
on the wrinkled grave the color of a skull
With black soil and blue-button violets 
spilling over weeds and the vanishing
letters of the name of
l’´épouse d’un maire

I thought
my wife would like it here
among the floating thoughts the cracking shards

Sensing grapes and herbs
and fields of lavender all silent and hidden
and profound
recalling photographs of smiling grandmeres

like a shepherd sketching in the stars
eons of the rich and fertile dead
my wife would think
this simple village
If only we could take it home
transplant the realité the vers
from the sludge and toil
graveless, plotless and unmarked 

the tableaux of her and me.