On the Equal Night of Spring
  by Susan Hazen-Hammond

In the time of equal light and dark, when the earth tilts
towards summer, the air grows toxic with explosions of juniper’s
fertility in air that mixes pollen with dust and things unseen.

As the earth leans towards summer, I doze in a black nightgown
to protest war and its fertility, but that doesn’t stop the bleeding.
I use my body as a poster. I sleep wrapped in death and wear death

every day, but no one seems to notice, and nothing stops the dread
of those who eat, cough, and snore between bullets and bombs.
I wear black every day to remind you of war, but we breathe

a strange air that pollinates confusion, as if people were not
screaming and running to reach the mangled and the headless.
Why do we live as if such deaths do not happen, like the parking lots

that cover those who sneezed and itched before us? Their remains
beneath the asphalt are samples of our next bodies, the dirt we will
turn into, but what kind of dirt do you plan to become when you

disassemble into something to sweep away? Swollen with war and
the wars in its womb, how can we dance the light and dark equal before
our blood turns to sand, waiting for a broom, a wind, the next wave?