EVERY BODY
CJ Peradilla Everybody knows a lungful of water
makes a body sink. Everybody knows
a clenched fist makes a perfect weapon
to bruise & bruise &
bruise a body until it yields
until it doesn’t. Science works this way, see,
and violence, too, of course—but everybody
knows this. There is nothing left to bury
but the flowers that we’ve ripped
from the bosom of the earth. Take what you can
carry, but never resentment. Everybody knows
this. The body forgets it belongs to somebody
in the end, anyway. Mark our graves. Human
decency. Somebody. Kyrie Eleison. Any body.