Equation
by Evan Harrison
Had the front page been an ink spill—
a botched job—perhaps I could
better know the funereal black inside
their gaping mouths: brother angry
beyond grief for a lost brother,
sowed into the old wind
of old oppression. Perhaps I could
better know blood touched with dirt,
drying under sun. But we deal
in words that feel like an ambush.
America wrenches mountains from sand,
the peaks called deadliest—
the deadliest day in weeks,
the deadliest month since June.
The words echo again and again
through brief valleys—somewhere
someone counts the dead.
A range in the distance is monochrome,
a shadow unstreaked with shadows,
moments and folds indiscernible,
like the outline of a body
etched lying in moonlight.
I sit on a sofa and ask,
inside, ask, but there is no answer
in a sum.
