it’s the wailing ones that always crack first
you can hear their cries any time of the day

wide eyed and stumbling, they walk among us
hands, either shaking or ****** mice
hiding amongst arm and tightly knotted torso

you won’t watch it happen
you don’t get to see the shatter

it happens with a horse’s tail dipped in cement
dragged along a body filled trench
type of movement that required
a lot of dead people

the mothers listen to it
unwilling ear glued against keyhole
unwilling hand held in the ambulance

the doctors try to explain how the wailing
fluctuates between needle piercing eardrum
and icicles shoved in mouth-holes
and the mothers cannot listen to it