catapult magazine

Nocturne

by Michelle Julianne Gallagher

Humans lie
Crumpled and sprawling in the grass.
Not conscious, not remembering,
Their chests are rising and falling
With unseen breath.

Shirts soak up the sun
And drench the green
With bright reds and blacks.
So open to every attack,
And yet they sleep.

“Why does everyone have to die?”
You had asked me
And I had no answer.
But now I remember
Nobody dies for nothing.

I watch your chest rising and falling;
Rising and falling.