Warmth creeps darkly over my

Sickle white skin,

A hover bee sings, cupped

By a neat current of air that swims through

My leg hairs. Blue smokes

The sky and makes it hard to see in all this

Sunlight.

And the world is at war.

 

What parts of people break, when other parts break down?

 

Confetti-lunged

Reflections of their first words, their

‘I do’s’, their wide-eyed wonder at

A newly knighted role by baby fist ovations

Now convulsing pale,

On a bed. Can they hear the tick tick tick

Of a catastrophe clairvoyance picking through

Their visions of the future, expecting their reflections

To harden in the glass and show them

Still –

Through all this grief,

Through all this fear,

They are human. And as I sit here watching pond life

They dredge through undiscovered depths of

What that means.

 

I wriggle my toes, watching the blossom trees.

I taste the sweetness of tea. And we are at war.

Photo by Baby QB