blessed are the dead that the rain rains on
       

if someone could just explain this
instead of inventing new kinds of cars
or phones
tell me where are the dead &
every moment of their lives

is it static like a photograph
or are all those moments alive somewhere
& if they are alive how does the pain stop

or the kiss we give the dead
body gone
but love still here blown through open fingers into air

none of these tech guys or the physicists know
astronomers who keep finding new stars
whose light started toward us a million years ago
they've just found proof of the big bang

couldn't we stop tearing each other limb
from limb & try to recognize ourselves
in each other or maybe we can't stand
to see it clearly — all this light
then the body empty & underground

just the thought makes me panicked & claustrophobic
i like it up here but what is there to do
we didn't even see our factories melting
the North Pole until snow came
to Georgia & the polar bears had trouble finding ice.

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Copyright © 2022 Kelle Groom All rights reserved
from CutBank
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission