Aaron Lopatin

Requiem, emptied

1

This is the tearing apart.

Fruition, adust.

The grammar: its concavities.

So many groves.

So many motion.

Few, if any, leaves.

2

And so, the grasses in their waves,

uproot & end themselves —

I see that now. I see

their flickering lines.

But what do you see in the clearing

out of time?

Twigs, mostly. Mostly twigs.

We assumed an order, but didn’t

count on one.

We, maybe, wavered too.

3

We failed to carry; failed to clasp.

We castled our containment.

It wasn’t a crueling of sorts.

Enabling or an abling, you asked

to be laid down.

You gooded yourself with graces. I still

-nessed in the sun.

There was a softening of sound.

There was a something-ing of sound.

I deathed; you deathed; we

practiced death:

through breathing / through the lungs.

Aaron Lopatin is a poet and teacher living in Brooklyn, New York. His work has appeared in the Colorado Review, Chicago Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Conjunctions, and elsewhere.