Two Pieces

A prayer for the parents

There is complete quiet.
It is time to talk
to yourself. It is time to hear
two words. Four children
of the same family are gone (even
the one who didn’t 
yet know
how to ask). What kind of love is that?
What kind of love is it
you feel? I thought so. Love can
be tricky. Especially the love of
death. The murders continued
uninterrupted. 
It is still time to hear two words.
It is still time to say 
them
to yourself. And if I don’t, you
ask. There is complete quiet. 
There was complete quiet.
Four children of another family
are gone, even the wicked 
child who hadn’t yet
heard from his father’s 
voice the word we.
Love can be tricky. We 
each know that, come to that
on our own. It is still
time. There is still time.
The tanks circled the city and fell
in love with death. Four children 
of another family are gone. One 
day the wise one of them would have 
asked, What is the law? and you 
might have heard her, heard it
(the law). There is complete quiet.
Where is the law? 
Is there still time?
There is no law. There’s 
only time, there is only time to,
there is just enough time to
talk, to talk to yourself,
to hear two words, to hear your

self say (say
it) two words.
It is time:

1
David after the death
of his beloved,

Jonathan: How

I loathe the king
of Israel and all
alone make war
against him.

2
Do you know where
you are? Yes. Where?
Here. Do you know
where I am? No.
Also here. Oh. (I go
outside and finally
say the word we).

3
There are none to comfort us
and none for us to comfort.

Nobody is counting
on the cruelty of the fathers

to let up (which is impossible,
anyway, according to the fathers).

4
We are enveloped in thick
layers of memory.

You cross out memory
and write weaponry.

You cross out we
and write you.

5
And you’ll sing to
sweep the dust of some
one’s silence and it
might even work.