Let the record show
Carrie Lorig

what we caught in the background of the photograph.
it was you
on the piano.
the children licking the walls.
what the murder was thinking
when it answered its own heated questions
after
the victim was really gone.
it was standing alone in a tobacco field,
crushing
several vegetable weevils
and one green peach aphid.
she had demanded to be buried in a birdcage.
everyone wore purple like they were asked to.
bruises did not count.
us, on the roof, counting the rib bones in the gutters.
the cracks went all the way down
to the living room.
what flowed between them.