Maybe we were running toward trees
across a field strewn with sunlight;
maybe we were worming through
culverts, digging a dog’s grave,
biking with no hands on the grips;
maybe we were watching the flight
of a baseball, a bird, a father’s hand;
maybe we saw the steely glint in the sky
before our chests became hollow drums
struck by sound louder than sound,
sound that was fist, bat, bludgeon,
sound felt more than heard.
Maybe it was more than a hole ripped
in sky by a machine practicing menace,
learning to drop bombs dumbly
like a deer that shits while it walks;
maybe it was us, just us, imagining
a god even angrier than the one
who once hung his own son on a tree,
who was eager now to show us his face,
who knew exactly where we lived.
