May 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
a year since
the god of
starving dogs
the person i was
left behind like
so much
shed skin
the person i am
content to sit by
this second story
window
at twilight
willing to believe
the ovens will
never be fired up
again
and next door
a baby cries
or maybe a mother
and two days ago
the first body
of the season
was pulled from
the river and
named
a small moment
buried beneath
centuries of
brutality but it
stays with me
whatever can’t be
forgotten
worried to death
instead
May 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
the hand is tiny
the mother history
softly
out where the pacific
comes up hard against
the bitter end of
the twentieth century
softly
where the front door
swings back and forth in
a hot breeze
and will you be
the one
to step forward and stop this
small tragedy before
its inevitable conclusion?
the answer
spoken or unspoken
is no
and you are not alone
the dogs will eat their fill
and the angels will sing
some serious fucking blues
beautiful young women will
sit at the open windows
of second story apartments
and cry
this is happening
even now
this has always been
happening
the fragile beauty of
innocence
refusing to be destroyed
with the thing itself
May 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
back to this
again
cold and grey
and the eye of god
closed tight against the
raw sound of animals
dying terribly
you were hoping for
something better
a child of your own
a small white house
in a quiet town
but here we are on
beecher street where white
is not a color
is instead
a waiting for rust or
maybe just bleach spilled
across a favorite
shirt
a minor shade of despair
and even if the
sun shines it casts
only shadows
and even if
the windows break
we’ve forgotten how
to bleed
and there is never a
shortage of angry fists
trying to help us to
remember
