inconsolable laughter
smoke curling around her head, an old
woman waits on a bench for the rapture,
which keeps arriving, and two girls skip
by in white shoes, boys taunting each other
in the shade beneath a jerusalem tree,
and her eyes are burned out with sun,
aching with unbearable loneliness, her
mouth opens, but she’s not talking, there
are no words, only the weird sound of
inconsolable laughter.
Patrick Friesen 