IIn the Shadow of the Emperor's Malady
Mors certa, vita incerta
“Normal led to this.” — Ed Yong, essay in The Atlantic Magazine
Allegro
translucent grief lanterns the hourglass under which death arrived
wilding zoonotic death jumps species and nation
stories not meant to have been written this way
as we threw our gowns frayed and began to stammer
god-welcomed by the day
the abyss at night we could not bury
the deleted undeleted
the deleterious and detritus of grief
your own
can you watch it enter with each frail breath
in the morning darkness spreads thin winter light as the fall of the last, sound
our hands scribble songs to one another
dance shadows throughout the mint evening in tandem with ghosts
once we called this tango
now we require requiems
as the world and its obsequies become a new quilt of white and black
diaphanous breath houses bereavement in the alphabet of names where death once plundered
