The Dead Of Night Poem by Charlotte Ballard

New Orleans
Bodies lie unburied.
The smell like
A day dead chicken
Laying sprawled as
A meal for maggots
And feral dogs.

At night, the rain falls
On open eyes that
Quickly fill and spill
Both ichor and fluid
Dark, streaked with red.
No babies cry
In the dead of night

Small voices hushed
So they won’t frighten
The strangers crouched
There on belonging scattered
For a bottle of water
And a meal pressed
Flat between flakes
Of steel. Buses
Take all the
Ache away.
Mostly.