Law manifests
Unclothes
Dislikes it’s reflection
Alters its decision
Don’s a darker tone
Wades out into an unhealthy stream
Keeps her clothes on
Climbs in a boat
Rows to the other side
“You’re unwanted as much as you’re wanted”
Squawk the crows on the railroad siding,
It’s always those hiding
in the background
Driving desperation underground
That make the loudest
silent sound.
Sunrise, I walk Delaware Avenue
Watching trash collectors
Throwing placards in the back
of a trailer
A sense of failure clattering
under a magenta hue sky
I grab a coffee and
sit by the reflecting pool,
People begin to pass back and forth,
Clouds drag their heels,
Like overburdened school children
Hating school
But knowing they have no say
Because this is…
Just the way
Things are,
Some things cannot be reconciled,
Be it the ownership of a gun,
An unprovoked invasion,
Individual freedom,
Collective accountability,
The inevitability of pain,
Or an ocean stained with human activity,
Sunset, on Delaware Avenue
I head back to my hotel
Under a swell of gaslight gloom
That leans its forehead
Against the window of my room
Staring neither in, nor outside
But imagining determined perfection,
perpetually out of sight.
