I’m not supposed to know the word crepitus,
Let alone the sound,
Or the grating feeling of it in my hands.
I didn’t know what to say to the woman collapsed on the lawn,
So “one second” I uttered like an idiot as I passed,
To this sack of red liquid and tubes
That killed itself but had forgotten to die.
God could come down and plug that hole with its finger,
But they’d still be done and gone.
I don’t have time to question the ethics of keeping this alive.
But I will never unsee the last thing they ever saw,
A photo floating in red beside a gun
Of them and a young man about my age.
And they about the age of my dad.
And now I will never unhear the cacophonous sounds of bones
When trying to push him back together.
Hole In The Hedgerow 
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