THE CITY

In Our Perishing Republic

By Malachi Black

Their watches tick. Their eyes are as they were
when they went slack: as sallow as carved wax.
The dead lie frozen in their mothers’ cars.

Their fathers cough, rising from cloth armchairs
to shut off a kitchen light. The faucet drips.
Their watches tick. Their eyes are as they were,

watching Late Night. A buzzing streetlight flickers
at the curb: a strobe over black ice.
The dead lie frozen in their mothers’ cars.

One neighbor calls for a loose dog, another
looks through the blinds. A hall clock chimes.
Their watches tick. Their eyes are as they were

after a last glass of grenache. Their doors
are locked. Wind swings a flashing traffic light.
The dead lie frozen in their mothers’ cars.

They bear syringes in their outspread arms.
They lean back. They are parked in the wrong lots.
Their watches tick. Their eyes are as they are:
The dead lie frozen in their mothers’ cars.

Malachi Black is the author of Indirect Light, forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2024, and Storm Toward Morning (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award and a selection for the PSA’s New American Poets Series (chosen by Ilya Kaminsky). Black is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of San Diego.