Questions From Autopsies

I.

The accounts are all the same: how bonnet-clad
men with pistols and motorcycles
pump a pellet in the nape
or, missing this, aim straight for the heart.

Their bullets do not choose between
tillers or toilers, those who wield
guns or placards, or pens.

The warning is not lost to those
who view the bodies:

How do blindfolds, hogtied wrists
and ankles testify to the crime
of opening eyes, waving fists,
marching on weary streets?

II.

It only takes a second to kill a man:
death comes quickly
as sculpted steel ricochets
through labyrinths of flesh.

The assassins vanish
in dim crevices.

Do they ever wonder why hundreds
of their spiralling shards fail
to stall the exodus
of hearts, halt heads
from birthing revolts, silence
the tireless tongues?

III.

When all of the bodies
have been accounted for,
when all the pale hearts
are laid in in a long queue,

shall we parade them along
avenues and ricefields
to rouse the dead from their stupor?

IV.

It only takes a single bullet
to kill one of us.
How much more of us will it take
to halt the gale of bullets?


October 21, 2004