VICTORIA CHANG

Postmortem Examination on the Body of Clifford Baxter
     Clifford Baxter was a former Enron executive who committed suicide.

The body received in blue workout pants,
short-sleeved blue T-shirt, brief-style underwear.

Those unlucky clothes that might have
seen the moon in June.

But they contain a body,
                                       stiff as a canoe.

                      ~

The head is deformed due to the bullet into
the right temporal area.

O to be born a bullet, mute for
most of its life,

One quick explosive motion
                                                and pieces stray away,
search for bodies to embed in,

to make things beyond recognition.

                      ~

An abrasion on the left hand and base of second digit.
How the fingers can never again point—

            they are pointless,

permanent in disgrace, no longer able to insist,
to begin a list,

            to buttress a kiss.

                      ~

Small shards of glass on a shirt,
but nothing nearby broken. 

The ring missing.

The body received without the hands
bagged.  Even the dead must be contained.

Earlier a starling sat on a fence,
said nothing.  

   Contributor’s notes   
   After Hanging Mao Posters

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