Someone

Of luck, say what we didn't win.
We acknowledge our fixed
numbers and convoluted equations.

Say we accepted loss, our
lethal mutations, our pitiful
grins and ill-fitting wrinkles.

Say we kept at what kept us
here, bodies piling about
like a season's famous

leaves—incalculable numbers
someone must know. Say
we found the one leaf we

never wanted—veins red, its
heaven streaked as the summer
it became. O holy day.

Copyright © 2006 Dwaine Rieves All rights reserved
from When the Eye Forms
Tupelo Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission