Happy Monday.
slouches toward bethlehem
speaking of vexed: that contested strip
where nothing grows without hard labor
and now bombs rain down on schools,
hospitals, civilians scratching a living
from desert soil. what do i know about
that existence? by some accident, i came
to being in stunning privilege, my suffering
firmly rooted in my mind. true, i thought,
at twelve, we’d all be vaporized (eventually)
into atoms, and so i developed a plan: i’d run
straight for the center, make sure to go in that
first flash -- not linger, dissolving into radiation.
what do i know? the monsters revenge massing
in the shadows outside our houses? ourselves.
