1920 Cemetery for the Insane

families tied in knots,
administrators type,
the old machines clank,
the cause of death easy:
“malnutrition
mal-treatment
grande or petite mal.”
strange how parents
feel, their adult children
should be put down like sick ponies,
each cold-skin-form placed in wooden
boxes, carted to the fields.
but regulations require
identification, process,
each form lifeless,
no complaints,
but agencies demand
decorum.
and parents want more:
erasure,
oblivion,
their god-awful child
a constant slap,
an insane departure
too soon for DNA to reveal,
yet genealogy won’t
be fooled by graves
numbered, not named.
someone searching the years
will see connections
to type’s mind-warped blackness.