Cracked, gray-gone-dead:
the stone-cold heart pinned
by the pale blooms of buds
in this city that fences out
cherry blossoms and peace—
rubber bullets, pepper balls, smoke bombs,
all the unconstrained and uncalled for
on parade to a photo op across Layfette Square
(its border street now renamed in bright caution yellow)—
to St. John’s Episcopal where the everyday horror of now
is colorfully on display in black and white: the charade
of posing for the political gone viral, the reality (not virtual)
of knees, necks, nooses, chains, chain-links fencing out/fencing in,
not again but still
Or is it a bridge—narrow, grated—
not beside still waters but over
the teeming, the troubled;
waves of multitudes crossing
the deadly current not to the old
promised land of denial but
to this other side,
rocky but reclaimed—
vast, expansive, unending—
ready to till, to sow, to harvest,
even now the faint scent
of grave-strewn blossoms
beginning to resurrect
the morning breeze.
