1.

I’m haunted by scenes I’ve taught myself not to see.

Feelings I deny follow me.

I do not turn to face them.

I walk on.

I call my refusal of witness self-rescue.

I say I must preserve my own interior.

But why do I deserve protection?

2.

In the darkness of a sleep I am not owed, disturbances gash my unconscious.

Sudden lights through a thick canopy, sharpening into commands.

THE DISTRESS OF THE WITNESS MUST TRANSFORM INTO DUTY

WE MUST TAKE ACCOUNT OF WHAT WE OWE THE WOUNDED, THE DESTROYED

THE BODIES ON BEHALF OF WHOM OUR FAILURE WAS TOTAL

but when I look behind me—

3.

 the naked fear and pain on the boy’s face
the blood that streamed from his eyes
his begging 

the pale indentation of the handcuffs
police said
they never used 

the rusted paint can
the coroner used
as platform
for another boy’s head 

the dazed exhaustion of the survivors

as if a next-to-their-ears explosion 
had deafened and confused them forever— 

the makeup artist for the dead

he said he’d grown accustomed 
to the exploded faces,
the blown-out backs of heads

—here. The obvious:
to witness death is not the same as dying.

And yet I can hardly look.

The questions cut me.

HOW TO DISCERN MY DUTIES?
HOW TO HELP THE LIVING KNOW THEIR OWN?

4.

gaping shame 
the night 
will not 
conceal

the wounds that
are not ours
and yet are only
ours

we are 
the only animals
who prey
on the basis
of story—

sometimes I wish we were stripped
of our capacity for story

the way I wish we were stripped
of our weapons

—someone—
spirits—
a silent god—

please

give me a use
for these wishes

5.

This morning I woke to another island’s peace.

Birds I don’t know the name of sang, summoning the day’s rising heat.

I tried to summon gratitude.

For too long I have believed gratitude alone might redeem me.

A reverence for ancestors—
A faith in the inevitability of goodness—

Stop.

I want to throw my voice across the ocean.

Give it to someone else.

I stand barefoot on tile, waiting for hot water.

6.

Still I fill with prayer, as I did once, when I was a child—

7.

O spirits,
O bodies undone,
O you whose pain and death
we did not prevent,

forgive us

we should have fought
to keep you here

we failed to answer
your final prayers

from now on

may we name and face
evil

may we keep
our willingness
to witness you

may we one day build
the peace
we denied you—

before we join you
before we join you
before we join you—