"Home Burial", a dramatic tale largely in dialogue form, has 116 lines in informal blank verse. The setting is a windowed staircase in a rural house where an unnamed farmer and his wife Amy live. The immediate intent of the title becomes clear when the reader learns that the husband recently buried their firstborn, a son, in the family cemetery behind the house. The title can also be interpreted to suggest that the parents so fundamentally disagree about how to mourn the fact that their "home" life is in mortal danger, in danger of being buried. Furthermore, Amy, due to her introspective grief, risks burying both her marriage and her sanity. The husband comes up the stairs from below and sees her before she sees him, because she is closed in on herself. He belatedly observes that she was looking out the stairway window at the cemetery, which already contained four of "my people" and "the child's mound." She doubts whether he ever noticed the cemetery from that window and shouts at him to stop talking. Avoiding his touch, she passes him down the stairs. When he asks why a man can't talk about his "lost" son, she first retorts by saying, "Not you!" and then doubting whether any man could do it. Suddenly he announces that he needs to get some fresh air. He tells her not to take her pain to "someone else this time," sits down so as not to seem overbearing, and, calling her "dear," says he wishes to ask her something. When she replies that she doesn't know how to ask, he asks her for "help", becomes embittered by her silence and generalizes: men have to give up a little virility when they are married, and besides, two who love each other should be able to discuss anything. . She wants to be admitted to her pain, which he says is "exaggerating... a little,... middle of paper... nor can 'no man' speak to her acceptably. Never once do they talk about 'our' baby. They communicate with body language more expressively than with words. At first she is at the top of the stairs and he at the bottom. After reversing the positions of apparent dominance, he sits down - but with his chin "in his fists". , not in the hands. When she generalizes about forbidden topics between couples, her only response is to "move... the lock" of the door. He, together with her husband, is suffocating her two messages in "Home Burial", one for pessimists like him, another for optimists His action exposes barriers to communication even between people "accustomed" to intimacy. On the other hand, the terrible consequences of such barriers should encourage readers of good will to speak from the heart, to listen and to be understanding..