by Tom Saer

We saw her near
The empty drain
She’d lost her pieces
In the rain

Her ankles wept
In morning’s earth
She went to sleep
In beetles’ birth

The flies are here
Their tethers sink
They filled their cups
She did not blink

To celebrate
We found a wreath
Its whispers made
A thousand teeth

She moved again
From white to black
Her roots felt out
To bring us back

She told me once
She was a wife
She said she’d seen
An afterlife

Because I heard
Her empty breath
I felt I’d died
Some kind of death