from Sent Forth to Die in a Happy City 
The head is fitted to the body.

The offices go on functioning.

Once ships landed on the shore,
trains passed through the beech groves.

Then the need to explain.

Not merely as evidence, the student
of the law trades messages
through the wall.

They are served what they bring,
the props washed off in the sink.

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Keith Newton’s poems have appeared in Harvard Review, Konundrum Engine, and Typo, among other journals, and his chapbook Sent Forth to Die in a Happy City was published this year by Cannibal Books. He lives in Brooklyn, where he edits the online magazine Harp & Altar.