Ode to the Afterlife

-- after Federico Garcia Lorca

The spoons crouched on kitchen tables,
lying in wait to plug the noses
of parents orphaned, sequestered
in corners of dark sediment honeycomb.

Guards asleep at the gates.
Bricks and curbs shaking in sunlight.
Cars with no drivers, marooned in the street.
Wailing in the distance.
Blood dried to the sidewalk. The smell of it
in the hot sun.

To facilitate communication came thousands
of translators. Walkie talkies barked in their hands.
Their teeth glimmered sharply in the sunlight.

“Lie down. Lie down,” they said.
And we did.