Purple crescent moons wax under his eyes� even the dental floss locked away.
You sit, open your hands,
ask him to fill them like rain, like before,
ask him to imagine a dream that begins like this: a boy escapes from a castle.
He says: they�re all crazy in here. He says: I�ve got to get out.
You hold your hands together. You imagine flying apart.
PLAGUE
Seventeen years ago locusts spilled their songs across every summer day. My son would strip abandoned shells from tree barks and toss the papery casts into the air as if jubilation meant this shower.
Locusts trill now as the cat talks back, hunching at the window sill. TV reporters push mics toward witnesses at Baghdad�s latest bombing while I open letters filmed with dust and watch as the death toll rises in a blink of the cat�s eye.
Cynthia Nitz Ris teaches English at University of Cincinnati and works as a freelance writer and editor. She was co-founder and editor of the local literary journal The Blue Writer. Her most recent poems appeared in Snakeskin and Identity Theory.
