The Study of Tragedy

We can’t help but stir the ashes, finger

the relics, the proofed bits of minutia

improvised into legacy: the missing girl’s

last drink—a cherry vodka sour, the box of

long-stemmed roses by the door

wicking a spot of blood. Is it too much

to remember the girl

abducted on her way to school

had a check in her pocket to buy a lamb,

or that the window was left open that night

because the woman burned the meatloaf?

We want to reassure ourselves there was no

ambush, that no one was sleeping

when the stranger crept into the bedroom.

We’d like to believe in inklings, patterns

of fate, more than footprints in snow,

or a pillow used as a weapon.