How to Watch a Stranger Die
While scrolling on your phone, pause
to see if that burst of red is a dead child or
explosion of chrysanthemum, weeping strawberries
fresh for summer salad. Scroll past the boy
whose legs are a bouquet.
Try therapy. Try bird watching. Listen
to the trill of woodpecker and finch, look up
what birds roost in olive trees. Try to grieve
the appropriate amount. When the sun
burns off June rain, eat strawberries and kiss
with pink tang on your tongue. Think
about the boy and all the people he
might have kissed. Imagine it: head tilted back
to an open sky, he murmurs
mercy, mercy, mercy.
Lindsay Lark is a writer, artist, and therapist-in-training living with their spouse and beloved stinky old dog in Austin, Texas.
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