So, a million years ago, when I started Terrible Mother, I included as part of the shenanigans a poem of the week. This poem was something I’d find and post for readers to enjoy. Part of this is because I love poetry and I abhor the way people think poetry is just too esoteric and ineffable to be of use to them. Christian Wiman, the editor of Poetry magazine, said “Let us remember…that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we will be less apt to destroy both.”

I love that quote. I love it partially because Christian gives me an ulcer and he’s pretentious and egotistical. Friend One and I once snuck into a very exclusive party at the top of the Hilton in Atlanta one year by getting by Christian. He’s wrong a lot of times, and he’s kinda a jerk. But he’s smart and a really talented poet. And he’s right about this. I also love publishing a Poem of the Week because I’d like to think my poet friends will someday make some money*, even a smallish amount. Poetry is too important to lose.

And this poem is perhaps one of my favorites, something that is not only accessible, but timely, and is written by a good friend, Dorriane Laux. 

Will The Dead Please Rise

Will the dead please rise and raise
your right hands. Will the dead please
swear to uphold that hand for as long
as it takes. Will the dead please
reassemble your bones, replace
your heads, return your hearts, recant
your screams. Will the dead please
salute the flag ripped from the body
politic. Will the dead please step
onto the helicopters and into the bodies
of soldiers about to become you. Give
the living your history, your wisdom,
your sleepless eternities, your missteps
only they can make right, remind them
nightly to go on living. Will the dead
please buckle up and bring them home.

-Dorianne Laux

 *tm