White stones, flat or round.

Some of them boulders, some small enough

to fit in my fist—the instrument

of a perfect murder. Blunt, faceless.

If I kill and let the stone fall

in this field, who’d ever find it? 

…
There’s a farmhouse at the edge

of a Romanian village, lonely and thick

with shadows as dusk sets in.

People inside are afraid to turn on the lights.

Once in a while, stones fall

from the sky, dent the roof, chip bits

from the eaves. Stones fall, never bigger

than someone’s fist, never hurled

from great distance to burrow

through the roof and kill. 
…
The rumor goes they sold

their souls to the devil. She sleeps

with Lucifer; he rapes his daughters.

Their cows, pigs, and sheep recoil

from their food, for they are fed

the flesh and blood of their young.

They keep idols inside their house.

The blind head of a monster

is perched high in the center of a room.

They kneel in front of that head

three times a day. They don’t go

to church for fear of bursting

into flames, of turning to stone. 
…
The old man and his wife die

one after another—quiet deaths, nothing

spectacular about them.

The village comes to see them buried.

The woman goes first. Her grown-up

children, who long ago left for the city,

hold the casket with nary a look

for the villagers thronging around.

They speak among themselves.

Their gestures are calm, they show no fear.

They bury their mother in the field

close to the farmhouse, where stones

come out of the ground like clean old bones.

Their father cries. The priest is not there.

The village talks, but not for too long. 
…
The old man might have had

a drinking problem but kept it to himself.

When he dies, the curious few

are already out there, in the field,

huddling in the dry grass.

It is fall, it is cold, it is windy.

They watch the sons and daughters

of that little-known man bury him

like a treasure in the same grave

with his wife. Later on, some would swear

the ugly head of a beast was laid

on the old man’s chest. No one

musters the courage to open the grave,

though many vow to do so. 
…
The mound in the field bears no names,

no flowers. Stones cover it in the shape

of a hunter, the shape of his prey.

A year later, new grass swaddles

the grave and the pattern has changed:

the hunter is being stalked, the prey

has scattered across the pasture,

baring its teeth to new seasons. 
…
Somebody buys the farm with its stones

and its graves, piled on top of one

another for centuries. This is a good

place for game, the word spreads.

This is a good place that death

comes easily to. After dark,

if you still yourself in this field,

you can hear the soft hooves

of deer coming to feed

amid stones and moonlight.