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Never face west, to the place of the dead.
Go
where the cruciform blossom of dogwood
floats in the ditch along the roadside.
Go
by the alligator snapper on the mossy bank.
Let
no one follow you.
Listen:
after the catastrophe, it begins again.
People will come with shovels.
Someone will die of their injuries.
Someone will make love.
They
will cut one another’s hair,
remove the bandages one by one.
And
burn them.
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She
was drifting on a raft of bees,
toxins in her hair.
In the armory we tried dancing
to the staggered beat of dropping plums.
There was wretched tea,
homicide bouquets mounded on the sideboard,
a dark congress of umbrellas
bursting open in the doorway.
How did the world change for us?
Can't you see,
everything we create
now holds the darkness closer.
Nancy Henry's previous
and upcoming publications include Southern Humanities Review, Creosote,
Spoon River Poetry Review, Iris, Kalliope, Gathering of the Tribes,
5 AM, Atlanta Review, Raintown Review, and many others. She is poetry
editor for Cafe Review. Her second chapbook "Anything Can Happen"
was published recently by MuscleHead Press.
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