A list of what Too Shall
by Amelia Potter
The tallest buildings. Every clock, by then broken. The powerlines, no longer humming. Vacant mansions, pent houses, tarp encampments. Rusted trains, long sedentary. The deer, in whatever state of decay and dispersement, who just now leapt the prison fence in an arc like the hills. The prison itself, the bottled up breath from all the people who ever lived and died between cement and barbed wire. The secret cemeteries on ribbed land. This paper in your hands. Your hands. Every palm to ever cup a face. Every finger to ever pull the trigger. The bodies of both the soldier and the child he shot already half turned to tree root. A child born tomorrow. A boat with its first sail still ahead of it. The silent weeds like fur carpeting lake floors. All the sunken submarines from forever wars. Rollerskate rinks, basketball courts, cruise ship casinos. Empty coffins, not yet interred. Lavender fields. Junkyards of discarded feather beds, plastic bottles, bags of dog shit, and the woman who searches through what’s scattered for a jar of unspoiled preserves. Whale spines dangling from museum ceilings. The shadowy rows of bombs endlessly ready for deployment. Expertly made quilts, loving stitches. This moment, the next. Still green and buried, the seeds of sunflowers.