Sirens

 

What an unexpected calm in this minefield city

Shrapnel memories settled

Long enough to realize

It’s been months

Since I wished I were someone else

What unexpected weightlessness in this moment

Sirens fading eastward

Slow enough to realize

I didn’t know

They were there

Until they left

metallic

Unfair unfair unfair
How the gun is a shape
In the cradle of the hand
That gives no birth to tenderness
Two metallic halves
At right angles
That make a wrong
Or a wrongly accused
As if your bones my bones
Aren’t made of the same starstuff
Delicate bits of matter
Hurtling through time
One facing gun
That the other cradles
And wouldn’t it be easier
If we were all wicks
Incandescent
In a buttery pool of wax
Fanning our own flames but not
Snuffing out each others

In the encampment above Georgetown

someone has hung a Blue Lives Matter flag 

next to their other tarps and garments

laid out to dry 

squinting round the uphill highway curve

the zone looks like a frantic painting 

of a garden 

sharp and muted colors 

arranged, discarded

in that only human 

way