by Robert Emmett
two maybe three cats
near the compost pile
quarter past three in the morning
winding their unholy sirens
like demented kids
pretending to rescue their own
lost minds
sometimes it’s a chorus of
abandoned ghost babies
yowling as if to curdle the milk
in their guilty mothers’ breasts
a kind of zombie cry
from the pit
a frost heave of dreadful aching
splits the sleeping heart
from dreams with a start
that would crack open
the still frozen early april ground
and leave your ears ringing
under the distant white fire
of a scimitar moon
how do living creatures
mimic the undead so convincingly
do they mock real dead children
the eight and a half year old girl
sniper-shot on the way to her palestinian doctor
or the ten year old baghdad boy
arm blown off in his grandfather’s car
because they misunderstood the hand signal
their mouths so silent now
their screaming eyes
fading in the dirt
maybe the scuffle of heavy boots
the last sound they hear
that and a muttered “fuckin-a”
Robert Emmett is not a practicing writer. He's just taken to putting this stuff in words in the middle of the night. He remains in cognito somewhere in the woods of Michigan.