In the Era of the Sentence Fragment

Lines of incompletion. All those words
that can be gathered. But not enough
for shoring. Not against ruins. Fragments
of sentences, of dreams, of the boys’ school
in Hiroshima. Looking for raw material
in the dust. Finding nothing. Having nothing
inside. Unable to do the police in different voices.
No more voices. No more makers, better
or worse. Only weak echoes. And irony.
And the dim blue sunrise of the television screen.
And the wish finally to die, like Shelley,
mid-sentence. Writing the triumph of life.

“In the Era of the Sentence Fragment” originally appeared in New Orleans Review, 28.1, (summer 2002), and is reprinted from Charon’s Manifest (NC Writers’ Network, 2005).