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a small blessing

he is a man
dug out from the
cemetery of his own mind

a man
standing over the
body of his wife and
she has stopped crying

is being kissed by
lake water

by the plastic cups and
empty wrappers that make up
the cresting tide of
the twentieth century and
the coroner will count
twenty-seven separate stab wounds
across her chest and
stomach

one for each misplaced
year of her life and one for
each motherless child she 
leaves behind and
one more for the black flowers
of love to grow from and
he will lay a small blessing
across each one

twenty-seven silent
acts of futility and he
will believe himself to be
a good person

it's all any of us
can do

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