Seventeen years ago,
I happened upon a scene
in which a young woman
had jumped 135 feet
to her death.
Her body was broken,
her limbs twisted
into inhuman configurations.
She was a painting of her last moment of life:
her eyes wide open, her mouth agape
in frozen scream.
One shoe lay ten feet away,
the other still-fastened securely
onto a lifeless foot.
Several police officers stood about her,
telling jokes and smoking cigarettes,
while a crime scene photographer
recorded her grisly image.
For one shot, the photographer positioned
the body so that she stared directly at me.
We locked eyes as the camera
flashed onto her cold, pallid face.
For nearly two decades, I’ve fumbled
to describe the unseeing knowledge
her stare beheld.
But how do you describe the indescribable?
So, anyway, about Indiana Jones 5 . . .