The fountain clogged with plague frogs and our hair
went unwashed. I said no, because you asked
if prayer worked. A hammer works. A man
is work to a mushroom no matter what
he’s buried with– I know none of this sounds
like an apology, but bear with me:
the sunflower field was so dazzling
I missed the funeral. My shirt tucked in.
Here’s a country of statues crushed under
the weight of migrating ladybugs. If
men could, they would melt other men down to
gold. Mercy, you said, as if the fire
blew itself out. As if the town’s missing
children woke up in the silo unharmed.

C.T. Salazar is a Latinx poet and librarian from Mississippi. He’s the author of the micro-chapbook This Might Have Meant Fire (Bull City Press), and the Editor-in-Chief of Dirty Paws Poetry Review. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Review, The Cincinnati Review, RHINO, 32 Poems, Foundry, Grist, and Elsewhere.