Kathy Epling
READING THE FILES OF THE SUMMER OF DEATH

Say it several ways: a cloud
small, in the distance, across the bruised hills
or the intimate smudge on this negative
fusing a scanned secret. White masses

blind us. Laboratory files
refuse grief. Say the stars are forming
at a centered galaxy. Say love has a shape
you'd know, beautiful & wounded.

Now the pain
is distant, let's talk, say, of your gardens
the white valerian, the arch of ivy
Say there is a place the soul comes to

Say death takes our senses
takes your breath away, that beauty
the woman in her red dress. Say
it makes a certain sense, the lines

of white birches, the blasted lesions
like fireworks exploding
through the brain. They're pretty.
They could be a row of daisies. 

This could be the storm breaking
This could be the falling tower
Your hands tremble
Your nerves are naked

Poetry is the last resort.