Bruise Music

Des Plaines, Illinois: Acre of river. River        of silver un-grief. River                who alibied out. Who is        not talking. Of methodical defrost.River like an unblinking eye, neck        with traces of ligature. Of night                in the garrote, night unmoving        & unconscious. A dead priestin a cathedral, once a boy        but now reduced to animal                because he no longer moves, only        is moved. River leading from the bridgeto the boy who was thrown. Bridge        sticking to its story. Perjured bridge—                hiding its blue tongue in its stone mouth.        River of a garrote. Singing ligature, ligatureembedded in the adagio of his skin. Boyish        river: All-American, the town's favorite. Bodiless                funeral: procession of unwashed cars.        His de-boying. Of last sightings—December 1978,parking lot of Nisson's. River of soft        frosting on his mother's uncut birthday cake                & thirty-three graves, most in the crawlspace        of Gacy's house. Of the boys, their darkening—the feral prayers of the town making themselves        known, floating through the lackof clouds, as if through lack of skin.