Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Nobody is ever missing. MIA/war. November 9th.

 


There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart

só heavy, if he had a hundred years

& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time

Henry could not make good.

Starts again always in Henry's ears

the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime.

 

And there is another thing he has in mind

like a grave Sienese face a thousand years

would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of.  Ghastly,

with open eyes, he attends, blind.

All the bells say: too late.  This is not for tears;

thinking.

 

But never did Henry, as he thought he did,

end anyone and hacks her body up

and hide the pieces, where they may be found.

He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody's missing.

Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.

Nobody is ever missing.

 


 image: The Passenger, Cormac McCarthy

poem: Dream Song 29, John Berryman





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