The dead are gone forever. Their bodies no longer move, their voices no longer speak, their hearts no longer beat. It is precisely this finality that makes murder so appalling. Especially when it happens at the hands of those who are meant to protect rather than take life. In these non-traditional haikus, the author imagines a universe where we can still learn from the dead, where their voices can reach back to the earthly realm to speak necessary truths and deliver warning.

Each vertebra

a generation crushed,

each murder a genocide.

– Freddie Gray

Hate

whizzes like bullet

through alleyway –

justice blinds herself.

– Rekia Boyd

Without breath

cities fall back into ocean;

every body drowns.

– Eric Garner

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