I walked through the trees, mourning.

I looked brightness in the eye.

The iron, the tang of metal & rust.

I held a penny

on my tongue.

The taste shocked me,

its brown-gold sweet.

I roamed the field

angry & burned

asking bitter questions of a gun.

Dance is a body’s refusal

to die. But, oh, your gone hair.

The flame & orange flare.

Our forms, our least known selves — 

barrel, sugar, & stench.

Your pleas, looped in writing,

the stutter of a body’s

broken grammar.