effigy

rounds of hate in scores fired

enter my body as i watch

eight fall,

six of them who look like me —

and what can i do but scream silently

from thousands of miles away?

                  still, the cherry blossoms blossom,

                 waxy callas trumpet sunward,

                 and the green that conquers foothills blatantly

                 announces spring:

                the hum of cyclosis in tranquil daylight but

their screams rattle clear inside my cranium,

their screams as they died,

and I think that

                  when their bodies hit the floor

                  and bled life back into the earth,

part of me died with them.

03/30/21