After Us

After Pierre Peuchmaurd

Followed by a wilderness
Followed by someone stepping out
Naked, closing off a dream
Followed by waking at morning
With icy feet
Followed by mouths
Glued like the nighttime
To our limbs
(I don’t remember much)
Followed by a great sadness
By something terribly ordinary
By fog
By little children
Flopping out of embrace
(about that night)
(I don’t)
Followed by sleep
Followed by the slow speech of fervor
(remember why I first spoke)
(or where we went next)
Followed by their two small feet
Followed by love sometimes beaten,
Hands tied,
Eyes begging
Followed by a life and a half
Left behind
(I do)
(remember things such as)
Followed by a sharp sound
Followed by monsoon rains
And menial illnesses
Followed and followed
(when you wouldn’t speak)
(to me)
(because)
(I)
Followed by the long world
Its quietly dismembered dead
Followed by a mall shooting
Followed by their eyes
Gouged out
(had forgotten to let you read)
(quietly quietly)
(in the muttering dark)