Liebestraum
by James R. Whitley
If it’s true that every hero was
once a villain in some past life,
there may be hope for us yet,
by which I mean that there may
yet be an opportunity to apply
all of this hard-won knowledge,
a chance for us to get it right later.
But damage has already claimed
its victory here—the squirrel’s
gray carcass disintegrating into
loam on the front lawn, the garter
snakes abandoning their fretwork,
no longer stitching through the
topsoil, all apologies, no matter
how sincere, evaporating, rising
like a shrill canticle echoing away.