Baqubah: November 20, 2006

by Meghan Martin

Today the local morgue stopped
taking new dead. The shops
of the city are also closed.
Their keepers left to dig holes.
They’ve had to come up
with new tools; there are simply
not enough shovels.
Neither can the earth
hold one more corpse under its tongue.

Across the street a bill-poster
glues the face of the new champion
onto a paint-chipped wall.
The men with guns wear masks.
Also, to avoid the smell.
Mosaics of weedy grass and turned dirt.

Centuries from now these dead
will be no more
than fossil patterns
concealed in rock. And above:
the difficulty of the Queen Anne’s Lace.
The round, detailed faces
turn easily to the sky.

For more poems, click here.