Three Poems:Kwame Dawes
Decubitus in Five Parts 1 After the Rebels “It was as if Death,” she said, “Halted us, and said, you came to find me, and you think you have, not till now—this that you don’t want to look at, this is me.” She took the photo of the long tree lined boulevard, the one that connected the grand mansions that were now gutted, their white walls, black with soot. There was no scent; the snowless winter took care of that; the ice crystals floating in the air a kind of deodorant against decay and rot. He was dressed in a black tweed suit, a tailored shirt, still brilliant white in spots, and though the fabric was rent, the cloth stained in parts with blood, one could see how it ended, his leg thrown apart, his arms wide open with the kind of resignation that followed the crossed arms of self