Necromancy

When it comes to raising the dead
and giving them a chance to speak,

when it comes to invoking them,
we learn early and often how it is done
and what to say:

“Mannlicher-Carcano,”
for instance,
I learned to pronounce
when I was three years old;

Audubon Ballroon, Commander Hotel, Lorraine Motel;
Presidential Palace, Santiago, Chile;  Jonestown;
easy enough to say.

Say “Flight 11,
Darfur, rape, terror,
Bosnia, Holocaust –”
watch the blood
welling up in their eyes —

O the turns
language makes
through our times!
It’s a grand time
to be a poet
because normalcy
is so full of
shadows
that you barely have
to know the tongue
to play at necromancy.