Death: Katrina
by Elizabeth Light
my first dead body
was scrawled and sprawling in the southern street,
the soul trampled and struggling
under the wide wheels
of a gray Ford.
a few dirty rubbernecks
surrounded the scene,
i stood off
trying not to look, but looking anyway,
at the limbs grotesque
and the veins swarming to the sky,
pools & seething rivers red-extending, heart
where it’s not supposed to be,
breastbone skewered, pelvis skewed.
my first dead body
sprawled in the sun.
he looked strong,
he
looked
like bronze
pennies.
strange
to see him,
torn & busted
the way my heart feels
out of love for things that do not love themselves,
the way my hands look
after a late-night accident
involving cool blades and vodka.
strange to see him,
blood seeping from his clothes,
like he’d never bled before today.
my first dead body was
a
boy,
hardly a man at all,
his skin was russet-gold
and his blood
red in rivers.
his body sprawled on the pavement
reminded me
of the gold & scarlet sunrise
my
first
sunrise.
i remember it well.
