1.
The bullets of your absence
left holes in the flesh of the sky.

2.
I cannot enjoy the status of grief –
it is too remarkable, open-ended,
growing in my rearview.

3.
Time has yielded nothing
but the blood of dead stars
and fear as a second language.

4.
The music sounds so pure today;
I baptize myself in its waves,
try to drown the big questions.

5.
Did I, in those last moments,
occur to you at all?

Selected byNolcha Fox
Image credit:卡晨

Hugh does not prefer to talk about himself in the third person, but if he did, he'd tell you he's in a self-imposed exile on the east coast of the USA, but still loves his former home in the Sonoran Desert. He is the author of Odd Numbers And Evensongs and Auditions For The Afterlife.