from the street: a wounded howl,
fuck the police and it echoes from the prisons,
fuck the police
the anger which vibrates somewhere low
in their chests, weighted down
by one too many
unwarranted traffic stops
when the tail light
wasn’t out, and the time
they killed that person--
no, not Mike Brown, the other time. no,
Neutral Mice (or Suicides Light As Air)
1.
a bird built a nest
in my grandfather’s
up-turned welding goggles
the day after
he died
I never told
my grandmother
this, but
the dead
are dead
and the living
are dead
and
by August
the nest
was empty