7,067 (NY, Day 80) by Jennifer Maloney

                  ​Colin Poellot CC



7,067 (New York, day 80) 


Over seven thousand people 
lost 
in the last 80 days. 

But only you died. 

The only death 
is the death 
of your voice 
snagged on my name as though 
it were a broken thing, the only end, 
the ends of your fingers bumping down 
my spine, counting the beads 
of my bones 
like an abacus, totting up 
their worth. 
That is the count 
that counted, 
that stop, 
what stops it all. Only you

the singleness of you 
in this spinning world 
the still point of reference, 
stilled. 

The gone smile. 
The never-again broken tooth. 
The lost, stupid, made-up songs 
that threw me to the floor, dying. 
You killed me. 

Here is the death 
that really happened— 
the only death, 
a single death, 
your death-- 

seven thousand sixty-seven times. 

​


Jennifer Maloney is the current president of Just Poets, Inc., a 15-year-old poetry organization based in Rochester, NY. Please find her work in Aaduna.org, Memoryhouse Magazine, Ghost City Review, Celebratingchange.blog, and several other places. Jennifer's sober birthday is March 21, often the first day of Spring, which she finds very appropriate. She has 22 years, one day at a time, and she remains grateful.