nail in the coffin

i have an obsession with 
headstone makers. how they spent
all their days etching the names
of the dead. one in 1700s new england
whose name i can't remember
crafted a skull that then got passed down
to his apprentice. all the stones have them.
the dead on top of the dead. i wish there were
still apprentices. still little morsels
to suck on. old nails are square. new nails
are round. in the backyard of my parents house
i searched for square nails. i never found any
but i did discover shards of glass. the glass
was not old. instead, they were probably
my grandfather's bottles. he died & turned
into a nail. life is a treasure hunt. no map. the dead rising
from the sea. i think i would have done well
as an artisan. i don't have the patience these days
because my brain is a bowl of cauliflower
but back then in the dead people times i think
i could have carved every day. could have
become intimate with the tools. i am trying
to think of what my downfall was. where i went
so wrong. why my spirit decided that i should
arrive at the time of drones & plastic wrappers.
i reject the idea that any of us are here 
for some heroic reason. i think at most i was put here
by the soil to be a headstone carver. to find the skull 
& perfect it. there is always a need for
more dead inside the dead. no ending is complete.
even the headstones are licked by rain. fade until
the name are whispered in the stone. 
i take the nails out of coffins. all of them square.
i build a house at the end of this world
with one foot in the next.