It’s ink in water, black and pouring from aside
a silver whale, maliciously harpooned.
White butterflies now flutter from the wound
and now, unbearably, its brother whale

is speared, and now it faces much the same
annihilation. Ghosts are flying out
in coveys, death is riot, death and dust
repudiating immortality.

(He is a coward killer even though
a suicide. It is a coward’s way,
to kill the innocent believing it
delivers murderers to paradise.)

It seemed like water but it’s really sky
and halos ring and decorate the day.


Done the first anniversary, 9/11/02