Arrow Rock Literary Journal

I won’t describe how we found you
seven days too late.
Just one soul in an afterlife queue
reduced to political bait. 

I swear, your slow voice
is supertemporal,
as you say, “It’s Your Choice”.
Field autopsy—post-mortal. 

Now, I would complement you—
if you had a name.
You rot to no one’s boo-hoo,
a soul gone tame. 

Perhaps you laughed nicely?
Or cared for your aging parents?
We cut you up precisely.
Dead blood, dead organs, absent afferents. 

I’m sorry… I have no more praise
for a tyro to death.
We’ll never know how you spent your days,
we’ll never hear your living breath. 

You probably deserved better,
or maybe your death was just,
either way, you’re a number on a letter,
your body, with us, trust. 

A mangled mascot of this city,
a poor kickshaw body.
Silent brains aren’t witty;
I hope Elysium ain’t shoddy.

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Ava Hake is the author of this poem.