MEMORIAL

I watch you call the names of your dead,

each forms deep in your throat, falls from your mouth

like chess pieces or toy soldiers, even the children

posed with field phones and guns— everyone ready for battle.

The names tumble to the lectern, perch there

despite the hard currents of your sorrow,

your tears, my tears, splintered

and spilling from tabletop to floor. Yes

name your dead, each who fell in grace or not,

in innocence    or not.       And I will name mine.

When I name names, am I counting doves or darkness?

Our lists swell, the dead crowding in, anger

plain on their faces, even as we clean their bodies, prepare

the earth, all of us greedy for more anger,

to claw at borders, dispatch these names into the void,

blame clutched in their talons, the language of this conflict

so easy in our mouths, so easy—

What lies on the other side

of the mirror if we choose to walk through

to a place where the sounds of the wounded

are lost in the whispered sand

and we can only hear water, a river,

or perhaps just the clank of dishes in the sink,

the soft sound of water washing away

the last of a good meal shared together?

Lay with me back to back. Don’t you see

we are two sides of the same hair?

Please, we can do this together.

You hold the amulet while I

carry you across the divide.