Woken into a cold sweat
barely living in a sweating town
gun shots from the next block
ricochet off the building walls
recoiling into a crowded mall.
Echoes of the way we are
filter along unlit corridors
through broken windows
reflecting a dead end street
freshly painted with double yellow lines.
I fumble for a lighter, a cigarette, a pen
and someone like you to scratch on.
Writing poetry can be ignited wings
busting open a barbed wire cage.
Writing poetry can live
inside the flames.
Meanwhile the shadows bite back.
If only I could do something
temporarily rubs my conscience clean.
Yet nothing it seems can be found
sitting very comfortably on its knees
with sirens, flashing lights and a mother’s
bloody child’s embrace.
Back in our room
polka dots and purple stains
create a map of sorts
on my loved one’s veins.
A map of sorts of where we are
most likely going
or worse
a premonition
of what we have already seen
in the last unrecognizable places
filled with wasted hours listening to
endless rounds of gunshots
figuring out how on earth
given so much we already have
can we ever really learn
to forgive ourselves.
