Saturday, December 23, 2006

shroud of days, age of fear

and four years later
you ask the drowning boy what
he dreams about
but he doesn't answer

you watch the helicopters circle
the missing girl's body

there is a need here for some
song of hope
but my hands have begun
to crack and bleed

there is a need for dali
who understood the importance of
visions

who understood our fear of both
the known and the unknown
and who knew that america was
destined to devour itself

and for three years
i lived next door to a man who
refused to believe in the holocaust

for twenty-seven
i had a father who breathed only
the rarefied air of martyrs

who choked to death on it
two months before my wedding

who was vague history by
the time my son was born and
his ashes only a faint bitter taste
in the back of my throat

and the idea of saviors had
given way to the rotting wood
of mortgaged houses

the phone continued to ring
but i had stopped answering it

i was reading about a boy lost
while playing by the river

it would end up being the only
story from his life that
i ever knew

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