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Souls are God's jewels, every one of which is worth many worlds. Sick of the word “soul,” we try on others: politics, history, nation. These, we feel, are less abstract. Soul has no banner we can see. We cannot chant, “go Soul!” as if it were a team. We cannot give soul a 15-yard penalty with loss of down. The puns have lost their punch. “She's made of rubber,” Bryant says of our daughter, and someone hears that straight. A pencil dies in Paris. The pencil is made of graphite, but its strokes are ghosts. So are hands that pushed it into figures. Videos contain graphic violence, a policeman shot on the street. Soul looks from a window high above. Soul holds her cell phone and shoots. This is evidence, this is archive. But soul has lost hers. There is no forgiveness here. Forgiveness is an abstract word.

For Jaimie Nagle

--6 January 2015