sanctuary: an improvisation

here in the house of truths in the
silence of cold sunlight at the
edge of the western world
i am only a broken fist

here with the shadows of birds like
frightened thoughts over fields of ruin

with the factories bleeding poison
into the rivers and the
children on fire and with their
bones reduced to dust

with their names forgotten and the
two of us alone in some
stranger's room and our hands and
our lips and our obvious scars

you on top and eyes closed and
the ease with which the moment is lost

picasso's horse staggering blind
down all of the streets I grew up on

soft music from further down an
empty hall and a phone
ringing in on the day my father dies
and it's always this ending that i
keep coming back to

a poem without words for a
world without beauty

all of these bare floors where your
daughters and sisters are raped
and the pure white light that
fills their minds

the lies that spill from their mouths

so much complicated anger and
nothing to do with it but build