We are searching for evidence,
following behind after the cops have
asked all their questions,
made all their notations,
taken all their photographs,
clinical and cold;
after the medical staff has
loaded up a body
like a side of beef draped in white;
after someone has tried to clean the place,
to hide the evidence,
or sanitize death,
or protect us from it.
Again, the children are dancing in his
puddles. Angrily he drives them away,
and, glancing down at a footprint that
has filled with water, he is startled
to find himself trapped inside it.
It's not that I've forgotten?
I feed it every now and then, or at least
I set some food where it can be found. I
had a place for it on my desk at first, right
in the middle, where I could watch it play, but
it has grown feverish and cringes from the light.
By Laryn Bakker (published in Prairie Fire, Winter 1999)
In the old days, the
touch of a burning coal
purified a prophet's lips. A
shepherd removed his sandals to
stand before a bush that burned
and was not consumed.
Flaming
horses galloped a man on a fiery chariot
from this world to the next.
