I saw six or seven squirrels
In dramatic death poses
On the river road.
They cannot have escaped
Your notice, the vultures being also
Your finite modes.
The child wrote a valentine
To each of her classmates,
To her teacher, and to the
Custodian, his first
& only. It's not that
Death is lonely;
Her company is, rather, all
Who've been, minus
Now's few
###
Tom Snarsky (he/him) is the author of Light-Up Swan and Reclaimed Water (Ornithopter Press), A Letter From The Mountain & Other Poems (Animal Heart Press), and most recently MOUNTEBANK (Broken Sleep Books). His chapbook Tired Light is forthcoming from Thirty West Publishing House in October. He lives in the mountains of northwestern Virginia with his wife Kristi and their cats.