Morning commute after another mass shooting
- Morning commute after another mass shooting
I am not trying to plead with Godbut place him in my body & walk
around. Death is everywhere, I want himto think. I want him late for work, stuck
behind a funeral procession. I want him tostare too long at the wreckage beside the road
out of irritation, not sorrow. To step on the carcassof a bird, then order coffee & notice
when it drips on the sidewalk. There is no turn in logichere. How is it to be human? There is always
something elsethat keeps us walking. [End Page 28]
Grace Gilbert’s recent poetics and lyric essays can be found in the Adroit Journal, Ninth Letter, plain china, Anomaly Literary Journal, Pretty Owl Poetry, Maudlin House, Twyckenham Notes, Vox Viola, storm of blue press, Sweet Literary Magazine, tilde, and the Gandy Dancer, among others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was a finalist in the Princemere Poetry Prize and the Adroit Prizes. She is an MFA candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, where she consumes unholy amounts of cheese and dumplings.
