No one could believe the morning bell cracked and fell.
Wastes of worry floated through the townspeople’s eyes
like plastic in the Sargasso Sea. Some posed that in falling
it had finally ascended, though it was a miracle no one
was injured. Others theorized that its cathartic assignment
was a weight too much to bear. The tower downed with it,
the church’s entrance was cordoned off with orange
cones and yellow tape, a crime scene. Purple-black plums
of suspicion dangled in the courtyard. Complaints shifted
from being woken by the semblance of hymn to not being
woken at all. People were late for work. Leaves sounded
more like perennial static. Days lost context, as though the
calendar’s numbers, loosed from their squares, disagreed
upon their order. It was always known that cells turn to dust,
brains mush, that some accidents were un-unforeseeable.
I remember this exhibit where people composed of
tree limbs were placed between mirrors and forced to go
on forever repeating themselves. That’s why I left.
