Poem With a
Question From Neruda
by Terri Niccum
For James Foley
How many churches are there in heaven?
And which is the tallest?
Mosque dome or spire?
And whose prayers ring first
in God’s inner ear?
The truth? There are no churches left
in heaven. God is sickened
and done with all that.
With grief-leadened arms
God enfolds the crippled:
the journalist, head in his hands;
and his murderer, armless, tongueless
and powerless, God prays
for a higher power
to put out this fire.
INDICTMENT
by Terri Niccum
Humanity has a weak chin
and a weaker memory. In Yellowstone
we are playing Noah, carting in wolves from Canada
two by two, confining, then releasing them
to stalk that new terrain, trying to restore a beauty
that decades back we strafed with bullets and
the cold slam of metal. Desiccated Grown men
were proud
to hang wolves heads on their barn doors,
gloried in the gutted balance
we would now reinstate, even as
further north, in Alaska, to appease hunters
a broader swathe of caribou is left
for the poorer shots’ and poorest sports’
recreation,
they will snare wolves,
sterilize the females, give the males vasectomies,
practice modern-day wolf control.
I hear this driving to work
(I am always driving to or from work)
I hear this and stomp the brake pound the wheel
scream give the damn hunters vasectomies scream so loud
I feel the stop of air in my chest,
then I just keen
this moan that begins in my throat and swells in my skull this moan
that stings my cheeks and snarls my fists we do not learn
one from the other, always some of us sit at a table
moving chess pieces planning wars
while others of us live like walking scars
afraid to raise our voices or
sleep without a light we do not learn
not to give in to bullies, we give the gluttons
the whole pie then let them cut off our hands in good measure
we do not learn to say Stop! Enough! We let them
purge another species, then haul our neighbors
out of their beds, then take our brothers
and when the tanks are aimed at us
we don’t have time to ask how did this happen
don’t have time to ask what we already know
don’t have time to do anything more than lie down
and make the flattest space.
Terri Niccum is a former journalist and special education teacher. Her chapbook Looking Snow in the Eye will be released this summer by Finishing Line Press.
by Terri Niccum
For James Foley
How many churches are there in heaven?
And which is the tallest?
Mosque dome or spire?
And whose prayers ring first
in God’s inner ear?
The truth? There are no churches left
in heaven. God is sickened
and done with all that.
With grief-leadened arms
God enfolds the crippled:
the journalist, head in his hands;
and his murderer, armless, tongueless
and powerless, God prays
for a higher power
to put out this fire.
INDICTMENT
by Terri Niccum
Humanity has a weak chin
and a weaker memory. In Yellowstone
we are playing Noah, carting in wolves from Canada
two by two, confining, then releasing them
to stalk that new terrain, trying to restore a beauty
that decades back we strafed with bullets and
the cold slam of metal. Desiccated Grown men
were proud
to hang wolves heads on their barn doors,
gloried in the gutted balance
we would now reinstate, even as
further north, in Alaska, to appease hunters
a broader swathe of caribou is left
for the poorer shots’ and poorest sports’
recreation,
they will snare wolves,
sterilize the females, give the males vasectomies,
practice modern-day wolf control.
I hear this driving to work
(I am always driving to or from work)
I hear this and stomp the brake pound the wheel
scream give the damn hunters vasectomies scream so loud
I feel the stop of air in my chest,
then I just keen
this moan that begins in my throat and swells in my skull this moan
that stings my cheeks and snarls my fists we do not learn
one from the other, always some of us sit at a table
moving chess pieces planning wars
while others of us live like walking scars
afraid to raise our voices or
sleep without a light we do not learn
not to give in to bullies, we give the gluttons
the whole pie then let them cut off our hands in good measure
we do not learn to say Stop! Enough! We let them
purge another species, then haul our neighbors
out of their beds, then take our brothers
and when the tanks are aimed at us
we don’t have time to ask how did this happen
don’t have time to ask what we already know
don’t have time to do anything more than lie down
and make the flattest space.
Terri Niccum is a former journalist and special education teacher. Her chapbook Looking Snow in the Eye will be released this summer by Finishing Line Press.