‘What We Have Learned About the Victim’

Donald Patten is an artist and cartoonist from Belfast, Maine. He produces oil paintings, illustrations, ceramic pieces and graphic novels. His art has been exhibited in galleries across Maine. His online portfolio is donaldlpatten.newgrounds.com/art

“What We Have Learned About the Victim”
(or, “If I Had Died that Night”)

I will return to dust, my body reduced by fire, soul released back to the sky
in smoke tendrils;

a branch becomes a stick; pared, dropped, shook from the trunk––in death, still
a purpose: creates shelter, feeds fire;

once: a guitar under water-falling trickles––each drop percusses a stick atop
the strings, evokes an ancient refrain;

I cry out, am cried out, am the cloud that hides the sun until I empty or move
on––the sky is constant; I will return to it.

Michelle Ortega has been published widely online and in print. Her chapbook “When You Ask Me, Why Paris?” (Finishing Line Press) is forthcoming July 2025.