the witness.

 

 

 

The week before and then again the same,

returning to the taxon place where young boys succumbed to the death

on a street, not theirs, brown mothers

searching for a blame.

 

Two vertices, diagonal to the sun, honor and respect

become as one, encampment of a dialect

but wrought together by the gun.

 

Diaphanous, the silk brocade, at chin and chest

held open by the caskets braid,

delicate as form, ethereal as painted

landscapes never made.

 

So hopeless is the minutes kept in polish

of the madeup skin, as women read obit

as if a  migration of scattering birds,

not why but when,

not done but death,

diurnal as the leaveless limb.

 

The brandisher of the gun lays still with

his disgust, emotive of the shortened wind,

unfeeling of the sun.

Reviews

[Emily B]

I've been reading reports of the shooting in Aurora last night . . . a friend of mine was gunned down once, she and her sister, the shooter was an ex-boyfriend with mental problems . . . i'm wondering if there will ever be a day when thoughtless violence will end, a day when there will be no more witness