After Swimming in an Indoor Lake on the First Day of June, I Wonder, Under Water, About Li Ch'ing Chao's "Alone in the Night"

On Memorial Day every gardener gathers
Many flats of flowers and vegetables
To go quickly into small patches of black earth.
Knee dropping to pull weeds, I join neighbours
In our late spring rites.  Inside, my
Poems still need help from an old
Drunk who knows better than I
How to break those lines.
Do my poems ever change who you
Still are, or do you
Just smile and nod sometimes?
By early night I’m fast under
Covers scared of even more murderers
Who’ll come to murder us.
Lying in a grave
All night long maybe I’ll dream
Of women carrying lanterns for their lovers.