Jon Riccio

Collateral Soot

Finding beauty in blood drops,
in children wrapped like corpse ravioli,
a wedding ring on linen knots
so ornate even the IEDs
clamor: what manner shroud
is fodder? you wonder
if eyelids are the last to die,
the schoolyard, if it
was foreheads anointed
in mortar, a canopy
to mend the deceased’s
cheek clasping an Adam’s
apple that perished all of age
eight; you wonder
if that rocket launcher
was prone to swaddling,
if shrapnel is the finish
line to a brigadier alley’s
sleep, if the armory
nicked the lunchbox
before it severed
collateral soot,
the chalkboard, whether
it fell childfirst, if conflict
depends on backstory
the way a missile
obliterates a birthmark
yet leaves the brow unscathed

Jon Riccio studied viola performance at Oberlin College and the Cleveland Institute of
Music. An MFA candidate at the University of Arizona, current and forthcoming work
appears in Redivider, Waxwing, Really System, The Writing Disorder and White Whale
Review, among others. A recent Pushcart nominee, he resides in Tucson.