Atonement

The women and the man who acts like a woman have come where this was done

They mean to name it. Mean to atone

A dead man’s stocking with a hole in the toe. To attune a tension

To ask forgiveness of the survivors who visit death today. Its house and garden

Neither shy nor equivocal to name the ones who did this taking our name in vain

They have laid down a thousand crimson roses on the bridge where it was done, a thousand parallels, a thousand pencil strokes, a thousand heads bent toward the moody river where it ended

Widows embrace them, press boiled eggs into their palms

Lilies spill from their throats

They shiver from the we in tenderness. It is inexplicable