Bricolage by Michelle Bitting

But what in fact will we make from it this time?
The double-gutted panes,
twin stamps
of broken glass, a jagged abyss
in the glittering desert
he pointed his knobby index through—
scopes and barrels,
the decision to aim, press
as if taking a pulse,
filling his finger,
the dead space inside
with all he could shatter.
And still something converged,
wanting to build
in the chaos, the complete absence.
Heroes in the dark
answering a call,
not knowing until now
their names were written
on smoke and bone. They
covered the fallen,
making a shield,
taking metal in the back.
Some were just born that way,
to take what the moment gives
and make a bridge
or song of it—
refrains of sky
ripped open, a carnage of stars
to look up to
in the terrible after. How
one stopped to bend
over another, like a halo
or breast—the mother in everyone
stepping from shadows
to feed the forsaken world.
Tableaus of radiance
no museum will ever tire
of unfurling for display.
How many masterpieces though,
how many times
must we kneel, dumbstruck
before the miracle,
before we say Enough—
I remember what matters.
Please don’t ever remind me again.

Michelle Bitting’s third collection is The Couple Who Fell to Earth (C & R Press) named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2016. She has published in The American Poetry Review, Narrative, Vinyl Poetry, Plume, Diode, the Paris-American, Green Mountains Review, and others. A fourth collection, Broken Kingdom is due out in 2019.