Here the body kneels
in a brown-black mat
of leaves, the patrol car
whipping its beams
across the rubber-bullet-
cracked-skull, flecks
of blood evaporating
in the night. It stands up,
camellias growing
from empty eyes, turning
to the stuttering sky
with a mouth of light.
Adam Day is the author of Left-Handed Wolf (LSU Press), and of Model of a City in Civil War (Sarabande Books), and the recipient of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha, and of a PEN Award. His work has appeared in the APR, Boston Review, The Progressive, Volt, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He is the publisher of Action, Spectacle.