the dead are leaves
stapled to windbreaks

whisper of ants
pungent crisp of melaluca bark
the dead are

jetsam in the whorl
of muddied rivers

the dead are raised, stone cherubs
in Nouvelle-Orléans

they cannot keep their distance

the dead give treatises on the living
as only the dead can

they do not know their names

an uttering, hymnal dead
echoes of their own flesh

the dead are throwing paper,
throwing themselves to the height
of glass ceilings

filling atriums with their sound.

Previously published online in Eunoia Review