The Peppershakers Were Filled to the Brim with Hosts of Swallows
They were very hard to close
The colossal sun in the rearview was a heartthrob
Dogs barking in the nighttime were torrid memories of the moon
And the people were all just wonderful
But something sat in the blood
Aged poorly
Left us like old skies
There was a gray hair
And then there was another
After Us
After Pierre Peuchmaurd
Followed by a wilderness
Followed by someone stepping out
Naked, closing off a dream
Followed by waking at morning
With icy feet
Followed by mouths
Glued like the nighttime
To our limbs
(I don’t remember much)
Followed by a great sadness
By something terribly ordinary
By fog
By little children
Flopping out of embrace
(about that night)
(I don’t)
Followed by sleep
Followed by the slow speech of fervor
(remember why I first spoke)
(or where we went next)
Followed by their two small feet
Followed by love sometimes beaten,
Hands tied,
Eyes begging
Followed by a life and a half
Left behind
(I do)
(remember things such as)
Followed by a sharp sound
Followed by monsoon rains
And menial illnesses
Followed and followed
(when you wouldn’t speak)
(to me)
(because)
(I)
Followed by the long world
Its quietly dismembered dead
Followed by a mall shooting
Followed by their eyes
Gouged out
(had forgotten to let you read)
(quietly quietly)
(in the muttering dark)
Death Toll
It was never just a tremor
that night
like a field on fire
and it was never
a question
of who returns
the love
to you, love is always
a victim
and an accused
why see it in such bold colors
why can’t there
just be
two victims
the way
it actually is
simple as
one two
______________
Photo by Sam Ross
