The Three Funerals

A car filled with Italian luggage,
souvenirs and drunk Italian tourists
collides with an old Volkswagen van driving
in the opposite direction under another Arizona sun.

Imagine, if you will, two best friends,
an aunt and a grandmother on their way
to that overused, gouged-out tourist trap in the sand,
always ready to swallow up any unattended money
and countless family snapshots.

The desert is no one’s friend let alone
two high school graduates with their feet up on the back
of the seats comparing love scars and bite marks,
rehashing homegrown rumors of the ex’s new fat girlfriend,
and laying good riddance between themselves
and the chlorinated confines of a town they had both outgrown.

Imagine, if you can,
a boy and a girl alone on top of a school gym bleacher
with a small transparent blue box between them
filled with tiny mock ants, and
no hesitation in her knuckles
when she lifts the cover off.