When we kill, we do it well.
I have paid to see their bones
encased in glass: rib cage,
incisors, broken femurs
suspended by wires. Skeletons
require care. Stuntwork. I’ve stroked
the memory of tortoise
in concrete parks, and loitered in halls
of heads and thrusting torsos.
When we kill, we do it well.
We strip the trees of music,
we miss the flowers, we forget
that metaphors are molecular.
When no one notes again
the inner tension of the crouching fox
before it vaults over the fence
or the hungry cat that enters a room,
tail swishing, to assert a mood,
who will notice the first signs
of the suicidal? Do not mistake me
killer, friend.
Sarah Giragosian‘s poems are forthcoming or have been recently published in such journals as Crazyhorse, Blackbird, and Ninth Letter, among others.