How come these apologies only come
in the shape of a conch shell,
never a horse?

Even without the explosion,
the blood would appear
as a rising sea

to create a halo
framing her lovely face—
her lovely dead body.

With a true camera in his hand,
he pans across the valley
looking for a way to enter

without disturbing
the canopy
of her death.

Let no more
ashes be tossed
into a false ocean.

Waves from a sound machine
cannot soothe him.
They had their bluffs,

sand, torches
illuminating a safe path
to a tiny boathouse.

A feather falls
from a sky
full of noisy crows.

The threshold cleared,
he’s awake now.
Memory is murder.