Author Richard Rensberry

Painting by Richard Rensberry

There are dead
being counted
by Jeraldo
Rivera
by Time Magazine’s
bad news men
there are dead
being counted
in a school
in Colorado
in tornadoed
Oklahoma
there are dead
being counted
in a desert
in a pile
on a freeway
exit
in a train
wreck
in Pennsylvania
there are dead
being counted
in Iraq
and Sri Lanka
in Kabul
in a cave
there are dead
being counted
by the BBC
by Al Jazeera
and Hillary Clinton’s
heads of state
in black limos
in back rooms
there are dead
being counted
by copters
and jackals
by vultures
that circle
and circle
and circle
just waiting
for you
to die.