Rejected Lines of Poetry / Rejected Phrases

delay
stall
hesitate
procrastinate

your mother reading her mail
your father feeding the dogs // I stood still

through the screen door three men spoke out your name (5)

three men folded / your name into a flag

Phrases overheard from a Memorial Day NPR broadcast about the current military death notification process—
• their world collapsed
• getting behind the stare

your mother stood in the shadowed background (5)

your absence like shrapnel
their words, unintended shrapnel

on the roadside—another bomb
checkpoint

the sun lifted off the roof of your parent’s house
as they spoke your name

and then I heard the chaplain speak your name (5)
breaking apart the phonetics of your name (5)

and then I felt the baby kick inside (5)
the first time I felt the baby kick inside (5)

spoke clear
whispered
shouted
proclaimed
declared
announced
pronounced
chanted

repeat
assert

•136/ the guilt of a stone in the hands of a child
•