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Herald
(Chernihiv . . . Mariupol, 2022)
 
Armored with nothing, they begin to disarm.
One man slowly unscrews the detonator
as he midwifes it from the womb of the bomb.
The other drips water on the metal threads
to keep the turns from begetting friction,
the friction from begetting a blast,
the blast from begetting a confetti of flesh.
 
Nearby, perhaps from a tree still standing if not living,
a bird voices unseen—not a blithe spirit’s ecstasy
but a spare riff seesawing two glass-flute notes
amid what has broken, what is breaking, what threatens to break.
A few miles distant, an explosion bouquets in shrapnel-laced thunder.
The bird does not leave, but if it hatches memory from the sound--
if it hears the ancient slam of the rock—there is no way to tell.
 
Far to the southeast, orphaned arms and legs perch
on the branches of another tree standing alive or not.
Such things seem to speak, as if they gather
in the weather of entropy to become herald,
but the arms point in no direction,
the legs walk no path,
the bird keeps chanting despite the roar,
and the men keep bearing death quietly away
to be made stillborn.