So, now. The search teams aren’t coming-
the fog’s devoured the deep ravines,
swallowed boundaries of ground and non-ground
elevation and air.
So, no one is coming, no one is safe
on this trickster terrain.
And now. The cavalry was never really deployed.
Though they’ve set a gift of artillery and gunpowder
at the border and
it’s all for you,
all the prayers and murals and hashtags
and kindness and never again’s
all for you, the one-person army.
Because now. The enemy doesn’t just look like you,
the enemy is you, all the many yous future present past tense-
Know this now. No one is coming. Not now but
maybe later to pick the bones clean,
to conduct a moral audit
to assess mistakes made and
codify/ ratify /enshrine the never-agains.
To logic
the illogical.
So, now, there is no police back-up inside your skull battleground,
No heroic dog to sniff tripwire in your mind-field
because the enemy is you
earth squashed between bone and air that pulses
across the neuronal superhighway,
where thoughts ignite and reignite.
And because strangely, everything is beautiful
during ceasefire/truce/evening’s pause.
And there is stillness as you sink exhausted
into gyrus and sulcus, enfolded into mind earth
gazing into mind sky,
where electricity is energy,
dancing across this silent space.
Word upon Word 