Lauren Shapiro

I HELP MY FATHER SEARCH FOR A GRAVE

in the Jewish cemetery
he is looking for a belovèd
but all we see are tiny piles of stones
atop the graves of others
the grass rises and falls awkwardly
over where pits have been dug
and filled back up     it is cold
but I keep moving farther and
farther away     all I can think of
is finding the grave for my father
it feels like I’ve seen the grave
of every other name     my feet
are wet with swamp water
and starting to hurt from cold     no
I won’t give up     my father I see
is out of breath     he stops     
looks up and puts a hand
on his head     Maybe, he says,
we are in the wrong cemetery.

LAUREN SHAPIRO is the author of BRID (Veliz, 2024); Arena (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2020), a New York Time Top Poetry Book of 2020; and Easy Math (Sarabande, 2013), winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize and the Debut-litzer Prize for Poetry. She also translated Desperar en el Sahara (Waking in the Sahara) by Zaira Pacheco (Eulalia Books, 2024). She is an associate professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, where she directs the Creative Writing Program and co-directs the Global Communication and Applied Translation Program.