by Daniel Edward Moore
We could have brought an expensive Merlot
to the supper called his last,
some chemical kindness
for those he’d leave like
olives rotting on the vine.
We could have dressed in drag as his mother,
worn couture shaped like a cross
and hopefully calmed
the soldier’s fears that
all gods die like this.
We could have tantalized religion by rolling up
his sleeves and tattooing the Lord
with a list of names
erased in the world
for not believing in him.
We could have told him that death is simply
the practice of not moving,
that it takes a hammer
to test the body’s
soft allegiance to nails.
We could have painted our names on the stone
somebody rolled away,
then be found later
like a tumor on time,
joyful, malignant and spreading.
Daniel Edward Moore lives in Washington on Whidbey Island. His work has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, North American Review and more. His work is forthcoming in The Meadow, New Plains Review, Steam Ticket Journal, and Action Spectacle Magazine. His book, Waxing the Dents, is from Brick Road Poetry Press.