This poem is featured in my chapbook Palm Lines (December 2020, Toho Publishing).
Walking “free” in a city,
where what is seen
fuses two to one.
Window glass abstracts
the shape of self
into more people.
Their voices run out, deflate
to tumbleweeds, drift
for fear of stopping
may release them
to the most severe listening.
An echo cries in the well of our nation. Body after body after body after body after body after body after body after body after body after body after body after body after body after body.
None notice the metropolis
unites in a harmony.
Up! Family in a mist
ballooned with laughter
dealt by mothers with priced happiness;
some children cry, fathers forget or
die returning. Every window,
another and another.
It cannot be denied
there are those who remember,
and those who love.
In the din of the streets, I hear
a new psalm. I look for God
not as messiah, but these strangers
among the masses;
their eulogies;
their names, my name, scattered
like fallout among the wasteland.
One Bird Speaks 