Sean Thomas Dougherty

Detroit

 
For the purest light
of the diner sign’s
neon red
For that waitress
counting her tips
at the end of her shift
For the grief of you
& schoolgirls
wearing their dresses
dark as Akhmatova
For the bright blue rim
 of a word
barely uttered
on the edge of a hospital bed
For the books opened
but never read
For the graffiti
in another language
on a high bridge
that means 
imcomprehensiblehope
For just now a body
is raised
above the concert goers’ heads
like the dead
at a funeral
where the women wail
in their black-netted-grief
For the smoke
of M-80s
that floats
to the open window
of a repair shop
high in a brick tenement
an old man bends
as if saying a prayer
into his hands
re-glueing the broken
porcelain face
of a doll—

Sean Thomas Dougherty is the author of 19 books. His 20th is the forthcoming Death Prefers the Minor Keys to be published by BOA Editions.