Novena

The reporter loads names into the story

One at a time, carefully

They are not all the same size and so care must be taken

(in wartime they are more uniform and flow smoothly)

It is midnight

Or maybe midafternoon

Or maybe it is just after dawn, the stillness

shattered

as the mist sits low over rolling fields

The smallest name sticks

for a moment, breaking up the taptaptap as fingers struggle and eyes blur

(jesus, 8 months old?)

but then breaks free, and all the names

fly through the air

rending the fabric of people’s lives

but none strike the heart, and by now there is so much scarring

that they are hardly felt

(except by an unlucky few

hundred

thousand

who are left with holes

that others pretend they cannot see)

A man in a suit pours thoughts and prayers on the wounds. Another runs his fingers down little pieces of brass

like a rosary

because he knows (thinks) that these beads will keep him safe

from tyrants

and criminals

and economic anxiety

and things that go bump in the night.

The story is done and the screen dims then goes dark.

(if this were a simpler time would the names burn

into the monitor like ghosts? what if

they had to be pressed into paper

by men in loud, hot rooms? or have they always left our minds

and our mouths

this easily, lost in the waves of violence that have crashed on our shores

since the days of the first creaking wooden boats?)

Somewhere,

two or three counties away,

another dozen names are lined up

before the echo of the platitudes dies down

and again

and again

and again.