Airshaft

Through the narrow opening, she drops it,
waits for the echo. She will wait.
Grime-smudged face, she hears nothing.

Light crawls down, creeps
through mold, rests on webs.

blunt razors, glass shards, menstrual cloths
trapped—garbage bin, tomb, purgatory.
Conversation floats slowly to the bottom.

You know how girls flirt
Lost his job for being
Gas prices have gone up
I promise, I won’t
Beat his wife, the police
Stop it, please, no
You can’t have her, you know
You know I love you
Even the baby, he was

Words settle
among trash, dirt, secrets.

Dishwasher
This is where they wash the newborns like dishes.
—Annie Dillard

Small heads,
oval, round, pear-shaped,
scrubbed clean by wrinkled hands,
lie above

a line of feet, pea toes
multiplied: bundles of flesh,
side by side by side
on the drain board.

These people coming out,
eyes staring,
what can they tell us?
Their cries are rasping—

All That Remains

I.

Night grows cold. My hands,
crammed into pockets,
fingering torn pages.
Music fills the sky.

The crowd around us,
between us, stomps and shivers
while sap crackles on logs
thrown into fire.

The chord progression didn’t stop
me remembering
before midnight. Moon red
with light, slipping

down behind evergreen.
Your voice cuts,
tearing at stillness.
Stars watch.

You were fingering
something else, wood
and string. Your voice cuts;
the sound stops me.

II.

I stand here remembering,
fingering fragments, slipping.
It was a year ago
and today they brought flowers.

I fingered paper and you,
rope. Coarse and brittle,
it cut your skin.
The moon hung low

and snow fell
onto warm ground.
Your grave, I have never
seen, but I remember you.

They broke the window
to find you
and the glass cut.
I don’t want to remember.

III.

Stillness and snow
were watching stars.
We stood
under blinking lights.

A year ago; we went to see
planes land. We fell into snow.
The planes cut at the stillness,
but your voice stopped me.

I stopped running, after
I fell. I didn’t remember then,
but I remember now.
It was cold,

the stars were cold,
but it is still now.
The stars watch
you sing.