Locus Iste

by Emily Ruppel

An ambulance
rumbled past
the outdoor
choir concert
on a last-of-
summer Sunday
in Utrecht

there for one
brief measure
we saw
the choristers
sing its siren

their open
mouths howling
the news
of a heart
stalled some-
where down
the street

then it was
back to Bruckner
and the slow
diminuendo
of voices
softening into 
God’s silence.