another body dropping

Niels Reyes

Love by the way you walk, the way you sit, the way you eat. This world very much needs love.

Thich Nhat Hanh

tilghman island, maryland. the boy washed up on the narrow beach, lavender and dead, nibbled on by crabs. the summer morning was beautiful and clear, already hot an hour after sunrise, humid, and the girl was sweating when she found him. he was no older than her, and she wanted to turn away, to run, to be anywhere else at all, but she couldn't, as death pulled her closer. perhaps they had liked some of the same things, music and television shows and movies, and the island is small, they might have known some people in common, gone to the same places. lying on his back, his dead eyes stared up toward heaven, as if waiting for god to claim his soul, his chewed fingers were curled and empty. one shoe was missing. although she was frightened and very young, the girl knew what needed to be done, that which one soul does for another, and she knelt beside the boy's cold body and said a simple prayer, "watch over him now, please." and all of this as the tide went back out and the sun rose higher in the hot, cloudless sky. 

james lee jobe 

Christine Wu

amid the urban rubble, children play to the dark sounds of gunfire. i am watching them play while i draw the end of my life on scraps of paper that i picked up from the street. the color of my end, my last second, is yellow. or red. i am not exactly sure now, i forget things all the time. the masters dole out the food, or don't, as they will. the wealthy disguise themselves as human beings, with help from the police. every so often i can hear a soft thud; that's another body dropping. this seems to please both the wealthy and the crows. welcome to america. if you're the right color, speak the right language, and have some money, then maybe you can stay. 

james lee jobe 

poetry links

My Father’s Nest, a poem by Dunya Mikhail

no one wants to be rough anymore, a poem by Xan Forest Phillips

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jlj