Through the window, cars, trucks, sirens, street-lamps,
they’re all searchlights. They plunge deep into this room,

I exhale a fog of winter to warm my hands,
clear a black hole in the snow for a campfire
of one struggling flame, a memory barely alive
of someone I left behind. I move away,
watch its light implode like wind blowing out a birthday candle.

Pounding. Pounding. Pounding.

A shrill squeak, Quick go!

Body springs forward

Don’t think now,

do.

The vast but repetitive broken-record of human history being ransom-notes disguised as newspaper pages, black-ink blood dripping creases down a two-way mirror like dried mascara streams on a weeping woman’s face after she’s gone to sleep with her make-up on, 

Sunday School today Miss Hooker asked
how many of us wanted to go to
Heaven when we die and my classmates all
raised their hands, and Ruby McCorkle both
and I guess one of hers made up for mine
because I didn’t raise it, I’m not sure
if that’s the best place for me even if
I pray and and pray to God to forgive my
sins,