I shoot my shot, nearly knocked prone by the recoil
of the gun. I turn around, seeing my ghost
of a chance slipping away from my touch.
My fingers, grasping at straws, are clutching my wound.
I’m crying out for those faces covered in grief
and holding each other, etching touch into skin.
Red hot, the ghosts of bullets burn my skin
and at the thought of killing anyone, I recoil.
Wounded upon wounded are piling up; mothers, lost in grief,
are crying out, thieving last touches, praying for a ghost
or spirit to watch over them—clamping the wound
and wrapping the skin, craving live touch—
praying to ghosts of ancestors, “Bless us with your touch,
bring us health.” Children recoil at ash on their skin
and mothers crowd the room, told to stay away—don’t touch the wound,
you aren’t doctors—and younger brothers recoil
at the sight of so much blood. “Is he becoming a ghost?”
he asks, grabbing his mother’s hand, who is consumed in grief.
Does grief consume? Or do we consume grief?
A mother comes running through the wounded, if only to touch
her boy one more time before he turns to ash and ghost
and spirit, blood running out, and blue, cold skin.
And the ghosts cry at our feeble understanding, and recoil
at our small attempts to thieve death and stop the wound—
I’m watching this unfold, still clutching my own wound.
I see blue skin and blue eyes and wet eyes and tears of grief
enfolding mothers and brothers-in-arms; there is no disgust or recoil,
only grief. Only tears and final glimpses and touch,
hoping to etch a memory in mind, a name in skin.
I’m watching this unfold, feeling more and more like a ghost.
There’s standing room only (perhaps room for a ghost,
a wallflower that’s not yet dead, with a wound
not yet bleeding out, but a hefty cut in skin).
The room is loud. Louder than the voices is the grief
filled tears and sobs, the reaching arms to touch
one last time, and the finality of it all makes me recoil.
And I do recoil, perhaps bumping into a ghost,
feeling a chill from its touch, eliciting pain from my wound.
Or perhaps it’s the grief in the air, finally sinking into my skin.
