Children's Hospital

Our sorrow had neither place nor carrier-away,

and dared not hover over the child

whose breath opened as transom

of a frail house.

Nor could we put our sorrow in the dictionary,

for ghastliness already shot out its own defining

in rags of fired light.

Pigeons would not sleek it

over their dirty coats, nor fly

sorrow against the aviary's sharp fence.

Each day bridgeless, each night birdless,

all the nocturnals needless at the expanse

of our nightwatch.

But wake at the moon,

we could, mumbling, are we

in a horror show?—inside of sleep

our shock-white minds caught on reels

where a child's body breaks the heart

and the mother can't know

if she counts as a mother. I don't know

if the child heard

what wept at the bedside,

orderlies snapping smelling salts from chalky bullets

against all the mothers falling,

all the fathers under

what each branch let down:

there's a hidden weight to snow.

Source: Blood Lyrics (Graywolf Press, 2014)