HAITI

- By Sami Hanna

To see the smell of death
dashing through the gates of broken eyes.
Where did the wave of the great tremor
send the remains of my last sighs
before it ripped the disk of the land astray?
They rose carrying a glimpse of soft decay
they came knocking at the wall of the eternal dusk.
With a few droplets of salt
they lifted the sea from beneath its bed
to let it breathe the blast of sleep.
The tree that I grew up memorizing
raced away with my stolen arm.
The tea kettle awaits the dwellers of invisibility
the empty water glass lusts after tired lips
the unfinished cigarette suffocates and dries.
To have witnessed flowers’ end.
The poor march along the hymn
of the red path of sorrow
they pluck a child from its orbit
and fling it against the sun.
I live with my dead neighbor
just down the road from my truncated mother
and we spent the night of howls
remembering the slope
where we both meandered
before the moon fell below its knees.
To have witnessed flowers’ end.
Lives drop behind my ears like a wintery sky
they pass the barrier of shatter with a thud
they collect their little veins in capped shrieks
until the night draws nearer to the edge.
I saw the muscle that twitched in grey soil
I heard the cells that drank the sea.
How deep is the bottom?
Is it deeper than a cry?
Is it shallower than the leveled earth?
Close that lid of wires and let me
blow away my fingertips
so I can pinch that lonely flower
out of its fear, into its ashes.