Missing Persons

it’s silly
missing anyone
who lives

or maybe
the opposite

you can only
miss the living
in a way
that ferries
marrow up
your spine
in one furious
red curtain

or no
the dead
they’re the ones
that open
the asphalt
for ghost-buses
to pour forth from
covered in
ink-black names
scrwld across
the windows

paint-thick names
names so dark
inside you can blink
or be blinded
or die
& be unable to tell
the difference

i miss everyone
all the time.

my room’s a coffin
with one glass wall

outside
there’s a parade
to welcome me

the horns
are so bright
& blood-drunk
you might think
something
was being born

the bullet tore
through my neighbor’s brain
like a nail
through a fig

i began
to love him
only once

the ambulances
sang into
the radio-singed stillness

the street after
was empty
as a body
when the soul
climbs out
of the hole
in its head
& becomes
a god