January

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Hello, pig. Here is your afterlife:

eight people with cell phones

tweeting your roasted carcass

in the amber light of a restaurant.

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February

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Black dog in the snow.

A frozen bicycle.

Ice riming the pots

meant for herbs.

Helicopter over the river,

carrying a heart in a box.

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March

There are rivers under the skin

and sometimes horses come to them.

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April

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Jon’s being buried in Florida.

Hours after the rain has stopped

its damp love still darkens

the splintering boards of the deck.

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May

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Child’s Shoes

worn to school that morning,

used to identify her remains.

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June

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M’s child is sick of work

T’s child is full of Percs

W’s cancer: terminal

Th: petty criminal

F & S have failed each other

Su is going to be a mother

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July

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Family Plot

Under the stone, the butcher

who held my father in his arms.

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August

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She dug up her dead cat.

Emerson opened his wife’s coffin.

Nature face to face.

And Winky, still losing his fur

And ignoring her call.

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September

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Sorrow Radio

bringing you the songs that once made you happy.

October

Shoes in Gaza,

shoes in Ukraine,

slogging through puddles

of blood and rain.

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November

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In the end we couldn’t solve the problem

of evil, so it was just another dinner

while elsewhere some grew richer

and some grew thinner.

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December

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Those were her last days.

“I know you can hear me.”

And she looked at me harder, I thought.

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