Audio: Read by the author.
today a truck
carrying a Tomahawk
missile reportedly tipped
over on the interstate
somewhere
labelled an “unarmed warhead”
its fabulous smoke had to be
placated with priestlike
words being murmured by
yucca-wielding
authorities & while covering
the dormant but cross entity
with tarps that had paintings
of blue mountaintop lakes
they affirmed
their presence with nudges
& reminders this valley
was sculpted by the once lovely
wings of a vulture & here
is where
you will quietly attend to
the disorder we heard plainly
over the traffic’s ubiquitous
din & before a smoldering
star’s song
from one winter night
an inquisitive firefly has directed
itself toward my three children
& through its testament
of cold light
floral patterns appear over
their snowy tracks replacing
shadows with light that’s detailed
& compelling us to place ourselves
beside the weeping
willow grandfather to ask him
please behold the witness
witness
previously as a winsome
ghost that’s awash in green
& yellow pulsating colors
it taunted the blue heeler
named
Simon simon ese who lunged
thereafter fishlike into the night
arcing its scaled torso in order
to bite the protoplasmic wings
so make note
of this psychically attuned
defender i scratched on
the frosted car window
without looking around
on a hot windy afternoon in
downtown why cheer he walked
across the street from where
the dime store used to be
pointing
to a remnant column he said
ke me kwe ne ta ayo a be i yo e te ki?
do you recall what used to be here?
having just arrived from
overseas
& wearing boots covered
with ochre grains of distant
battlefields he reached down
& crushed several into small
clouds
that sped over the sidewalk
as i nodded yes
