God loves everybody, don't remind me
       

a snake goes blind the last time it sheds skin, a body
refused. I've found my own senses dulled once freed of some body:

a cello's strings bending out of tune. the first time I saw a praying
mantis was in a housing project courtyard, a ballet of bodies

& the perfume of poverty. my aunt accosting me, it's illegal to kill
them: a mercy for predators she didn't allow her own body.

a block from here, a boy had his life snatched on the wrong side
of midnight, chalk drawn to crown his cold body

in the same solemn curves as on a sign outside a sports bar: no gang colors
allowed. I watch from the curb, my heart an intruder in my body,

bleating its dirge: the ugly work of loneliness: blood trickles,
pools in my palms. my chest caves into the shape of a body.

before my exile, I sow my grief, give dead flowers back to the earth
but won't accuse God of injustice. I know He loves every body—

don't remind me. stripped & nameless in the Land of Nod, my skin
as thin as an insect's wings: the only proof that I still live in this body.

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Copyright © 2021 Anthony Thomas Lombardi All rights reserved
from Salt Hill
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission