The Dream of Reason. Jenny George

       Death of a Child

      1

      This is how a child dies:

      His breath

      curdles. His hands

      soften, apricots

      heavy on their branches.

      I can’t explain it.

      I can’t explain it.

      On the walk back to the car

      even the stones in the yards

      are burning. Far overhead

      in the dead orchard of space

      a star explodes

      and then collapses

      into a black door.

       This is the afterlife, but

       I’m not dead. I’m just

       here in this field.

      2

      It made a boy-shaped hole

      and filled—

      the way a crushed hand fills

      suddenly up

      with new pain,

      or a well put down

      taps the liquid silt.

      The center pours

      toward the surface.

      Now the hand is given

      to the earth.

      The mouth draws up

      clay

      and drinks.

      3

      There’s something uneasy in the field.

      A wake. A ripple in the cloth.

      We see the green corn moving

      but not the thing that moves it.

      The atoms of our bodies turn

      bright gold and silky. Aimed

      at death, we live. We keep on

      doing this. Night unfolds helplessly

      into day. Beyond the field are more

      fields and through them, too—

      this current. What is it? Where

      is it going? Did you see it? Can you

      catch it? Can you kill it? Can you hold

      it still? Can you hold it still forever?

      4

      The conductor’s baton hovers

      for a moment in the alert