Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

With graphite I soften your bones,
make exotic the absence of your lash.
Your fingers – neat, elegant –
cradle a plum, the light of its juice
flaming vermillion through the taut skin.

I etch out your gaze, tender, tender
about your forehead, where the howl
of darting pain creases all. Softly,
as if with the soft lead, I can calm
it all, make it go away. You are going.

With the press of my palm’s heel
I caress the bald glow of your head,
then clean a grey line where your brows
were – now there is nothing –
these markings of what you have suffered.

These days, bodies crumble
about me; the dead, desperate for healing,
grow weary, stoic, then quietly go.

My blackened fingers make things round –
you plump as a fruit just plucked.
Tomorrow I lift you, bird of bones,
your limbs collapsed.

There is sunlight crawling across the lawn.
Despite the drought, it’s resiliently green,
except the narrow path of old sod we laid,
traumatized by neglect into a crude buzz-cut;
and this too is a symbol of our loss.

It is August in Columbia. Nothing
can fight in this heat. Just stay
still; maybe a small wind will
blow, maybe a small wind.