obituary for mary
we leave behind mary, wrapped in yellowed gauze,
on our trip to the river. above, gulls curve their wings
into the delicate sun’s light — feathers bent on the radio
wave static, and i call out to them, the spongy earth trembling
beneath us, the last remnants of buried shooting stars. mary was gone
before the fall, sleeping in a ditch out by the River Bar where we once
swallowed the ghost of a good drink. mary worshiped the radio shrine;
now, a whole jukebox gurgles drunk with static in the river bottom,
and we wade through the shallows, backs gleaming honey
gold as we sink deeper, deeper. i call out to mary, but she is
not here, gauzy and unblinking, ungleaming and bloated
— a slow-drowned ghost sunk and suffocated, thrown
overboard only miles away from where Las Vegas
meets Babylon and the wide river.