Shred of a Torn Apostrophe

On May 27, 2022 an 18-year old gunman entered Robb Elementary School

 in Uvalde, Texas and killed 19 children and 2 adults. 

Wake up the headlines

holes breathing

through my shirt 

salt off the rhythm 

of living lick the poem’s

edge of metaphor

where ear bares 

the cost of shipping

sweetness and sweat

off luxury of living

a hole roughly the caliber

of why sell this terror

held up rips right through

the static quo to hear

exactly as you thought

I trust the language 

to make a foam call

from a land mine

make the sound

tremble through a ditch

when poetry arrives

in the grizzle of meat

meant to measure 

the size of pulp

my poem can hold

nouns of all things.

To stay alive. Freedom 

to stay alive. Hand

charge, custody, title,

ownership, control,

seize, an omission 

the size of this country’s 

torn apart country  

that walks away 

rattle, rake, snake

spat, ripped. I want 

to visit when the apostrophe’s

nearness falls a bucket

of nothing will come 

of this. Preventable 

disappearance’s

disappearance.

Is poetry is one kind

of grieving? For children

will finish being children 

when the sky can no longer 

be carried on a string––