What he really wanted, she confesses,
Was to be funnelled into shells and shot
Across a dove-field. Only, she could not—

The kick of shotguns knocks her over. Well,
I say, he’d understand. It doesn’t matter
What becomes of atoms, how they scatter.

The priest reads the committal, something short.
We drop the little velvet pouch of dust
Down a cylindrical hole bored in the clay—

And one by one, the doves descend, ash gray,
Softly as cinders on the parking lot,
And silence sounds its deafening report.