Someone Was Always Dying Somewhere
Howie Good

1

Car crashes. Bathtub drownings.
Untraceable poisons.

Falls were good, too.

Fire told a story.
She knew how the story would end.

Thick, black smoke poured in.
She heard sirens in the distance.

Always coming. Never here.

2

How dark it must be there,
either a long journey or a long sleep,

the way a man's heart
keeps on throbbing
as if there was a later.

Based on phrases from Duane Swierczynski's novel Fun and Games
(Mulholland Books, 2011) and Donald Ray Pollock's novel
The Devil All the Time (Doubleday, 2011).

1996 © 2011