Lament for the Dead

I wrote the following poem in one day for the online community poetry project which marks the death of every person killed by police this summer, and every police officer who loses life in the line of duty, with a poem. You can find it at: www.lamentforthedead.org

or read the lightly revised version here:



Friday in the Subdivision

 

Lament for an unnamed man whose last words were, “Babe, I’m sorry. It hurts so much.”

 

 

In the calm of mowed lawns

and identical drives

no taboos are broken.

Doors are left open.

Sprinklers arch their summer tongues.

Unfolded lawn chairs

left out at night

shine in shameless places.

 

You planted your garden

but told no one,

held your grandchildren

like  a wandering amnesiac

all the while grafting a plan.

 

No one knows the real weight

of what they thought they heard

or of what you carried

or how, as you fired you begged

the lifeless form you once loved to breathe.

O nameless one, when asked to drop

your gun you knew it suicide to refuse.

Yet that is what was done.

 

And now the world has less of you and more.

Investigations yield unwieldy prayers.

Dogs lapse across barren yards.

When death comes to you as soft as air

glide patiently from the sleeve

of your body’s crumbled coat.

Forgive the neighbors

for what they are about to say:

their stunted shrubs,

the even mow, stems of bleeding hearts,

rows of shadow we all walk across.