Up through some deep sea of tepid pools
her eyes swelled into tears, and tears washed

the pavement's rough grain. Some had
flitted to our sides as if by gaining substance

others might share in the news of his passing
between minefield and trench, his passing on;

as if pictures and movies, not empathy,
could re-enact this fleshy gravity.

Her son is dead, a pope's waif, a mule ride
a cross warning, she had, dreaming she had

fell belly like on his mortar, pressed it inside
of her, carried its heavy load as child,

then summoned the emotion, a casualty, a sticky
creeping extension to term.