(July 1917)

It is an old photo, very black and

very white. One woman

lifts up her heavy skirt as she runs.

A man in a white jacket, his hands

tied behind his back, runs,

his chin stuck out. An old woman

in massive black turns and looks behind her.

A man throws himself onto the pavement.

A child in heavy boots is running

but looks back over his shoulder

at the black and white heap of bodies.

The wide grey stone square

is dotted with fallen inky shapes

and dropped white hats. Everything else is

heaving away like a sea from the noise we

feel in the silence of the photograph

the way the deaf see sound: the terrible

voice of the submachine guns saying

This is more important than your life.

The Death of Marilyn Monroe

The ambulance men touched her cold

body, lifted it, heavy as iron,

onto the stretcher, tried to close the

mouth, closed the eyes, tied the

arms to the sides, moved a caught

strand of hair, as if it mattered,

saw the shape of her breasts, flattened by

gravity, under the sheet,

carried her, as if it were she,

down the steps.

These men were never the same. They went out

afterwards, as they always did,

for a drink or two, but they could not meet

each other’s eyes.

Their lives took

a turn—one had nightmares, strange

pains, impotence, depression. One did not

like his work, his wife looked

different, his kids. Even death

seemed different to him—a place where she

would be waiting,

and one found himself standing at night

in the doorway to a room of sleep, listening to a

woman breathing, just an ordinary

woman

breathing.

The Issues

(Rhodesia, 1978)

Just don’t tell me about the issues.

I can see the pale spider-belly head of the

newborn who lies on the lawn, the web of

veins at the surface of her scalp, her skin

grey and gleaming, the clean line of the

bayonet down the center of her chest.

I see her mother’s face, beaten and

beaten into the shape of a plant,

a cactus with grey spines and broad

dark maroon blooms.

I see her arm stretched out across her baby,

wrist resting, heavily, still, across the

tiny ribs.

Don’t speak to me about

politics. I’ve got eyes, man.

Aesthetics of the Shah

(The poster, up all over town, shows
dissidents about to be executed in Iran)

The first thing you notice

is the skill

used on the ropes, the narrow close-grained

hemp against that black cloth

the bodies are wrapped in. You can see the fine

twist-lines of the twine, dark and

elegant, the intervals exact,

and the delicate loops securing the bagged

bodies to the planks like cradle boards.

The heads are uncovered, just the eyes

bound with rag. Underneath

the mustaches like blood. There is not a

white hair on the whole row,

not a strand. They are young men and