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
