Afterwards
All that animated the bodies
were their cell phones,
feeble, if metered, febrillators,
vibrating pockets slouched
in cramp
or release,
sluiced or wadded
with the wrong reds–
the workers stiffly straightening limbs
onto gurneys.
Most simply trembled
with aspen desperation,
like the voice that was surely picked up
by the machines,
but some chimed, knelled, their gamelon toll
far too game
for the silence of boom, shatter, shout, shard,
sheet–
No one present able
to answer for this.
*********************
A draft poem of sorts; I will probably link to Real Toads Open Platform. I wrote it thinking of the recent mass shooting in Oregon; it was inspired by reading an article about the mass shooting at Virginia Tech. There are too many in the U.S. at this point to sort them all out. (Photo is mine–ice candle piece by my husband, Jason Martin. All rights reserved.)
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