Local News

Two boys stood in the wood
that tops the road cut,
throwing rocks out over the freeway.

It is not that we see ourselves
turning every which way to avoid
the scattershot doom in front,
able only to guess at the swerving behind us,
though we do;

not that we see ourselves
the woman whose windshield a rock shatters,
as her hands jump to her face to ward off the shattering glass
seeing the concrete wall come upon her,
though we do;

not that we see ourselves
among those whose loss she is,
who must try to rethink their lives without her as a premise,
who must make their way through grief’s wall,
though we do—

our dread is that we can also see ourselves
at the edge of that cliff
picking out stones that we launch
to admire the arc of their peaceable soar
and the anarchy of their impact;

that the heart, which now
wants to be in the right place,
has in its time turned and,
exulting in the acts it hid from,
fled into the woods.

We are sickened.
God, how we want to catch those kids.