A GRAMMAR FOR WAR

After a day when reports of casualties

crackle out of the car radio,

pursuing me as I enter the house at dusk,

eyes wide with seeing,

ears fitted with knowledge

I know neither how to hold nor let drop,

I lay keys on the kitchen table

and scan the air wishing

again I could invent

a lexicon for grief.

If language could recover losses,

words might offer solace

the way a flock of geese follows

a preset trajectory of flight,

the way dawn’s arrival restores the ginkgo’s

mottled shades of green,

the way the mockingbird sings its song,

conjugating the squandered night.