typical of an arid country among hundreds of other flora you find half a province of avalanches parts are desert I might say light defeated by a dark thing that strips mountain and bullet no the mountains have forgotten airborne you would never say howl never say mountain or region or enemy you say men’s mouths are the woods’ black holes I’m thinking The guy on TV didn’t seem upset about killing his wife If he’d done so but he didn’t he says nothing about him if not after an interview tuft bodies of red wings scatter the lawns did you hear birds out of sky some dead wind he didn’t seem upset and so may as well have killed his wife a jury says If you could hear me now I’m not sure how important it might seem In another language Hope is not too much or that a random crime might mean We share something
Copyright © 2013 by Ruth Ellen Kocher. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on October 23, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.