Open the news paper
and find out that war has a set sequence
of going daily,
and has a negativity.

The physical shock, when
the earth trembles. Your body
becomes stone, hairs stand.
Light breaks through the twisted limbs.

I don't love the ritualism.
Time will not stay for you. My life
becomes your life. Sod
will receive the ashes of rage.

And you will delete the
presence, the touch, the dust
of departed fragrance. Once upon
a time, death used to be a song.