two things, and a question.
if there is a heaven—
if—
I think that it must be something
like the boardwalk at Coney Island
at four thirty in the afternoon
in February.
very cold
and very light
and very clean
and very empty
and the snow, still white
trampled down by ghosts
or angels
and the sea on one hand
and the Wonder Wheel
on the other.
the first thanksgiving after you were gone
we all pretended you had
never even been here
except
when it was time to set
the table
no one knew what to do with
your empty seat.
awkward and
unplanned; someone switched out
your place card for a different one
still warm.
silently we all
pitied the boy who sat in the lap
of your ghost.
and after all the glasses had been raised
and conversation used up
we listened for you
but in the lingering silence
you were not
there.
Science!
yesterday,
or this morning,
at 4 am on the television there was
a special on
the spotted hyena
violent and dirty and crude
slouching across the vast dry plains of africa hunched over
and cackling like some
insane pack of homeless children
eating and fucking and dying
very ignorant very loud
very alive. then after the hyenas
outer space;
falling asleep to the sound of black holes
and the way light bends around a vacuum when
it reaches the velocity of escape.
Anatomies
Biology class and you were a week past
Fifteen sitting there
Before you (you imagined you felt it
Trembling) a heart so much
Smaller? Smaller than you thought it would be or
So much smaller than a heart should be
Maybe (but not
Yours certainly although what’s the
Difference? No not right now maybe later) then a
Scalpel in your shaking hands you
Pressed into the flesh thickly you
Carved it open with precise incisions
Ventricle atrium artery vein aorta vena cava
All brown and grey latex fingers peeling apart layers like you had
Any right to be there where is no room for you
Beneath your hand just muscles all bleached and dry and
Palely knotted scrubs of tissue clinging to the walls and
The blue blue sky arcing up above.
Olivia Thompson is an undeclared student, and will probably remain that way for the rest of her life. She is from New Jersey.