When Darkness Comes

The water is high and green on the lake.

Harnessed to an invisible kite, 

I float over islands.

I take photographs in my mind and ask questions.

Is the sky bigger at night when the moon is out?

Do we dream when we sleep alone?

Where is the beginning, where is the end?

A thin man fasts in the corner.

A homeless man dies 

of a drug overdose.

When darkness comes, we promise not to fall.
If we fail at love, we fail ourselves.

Fake News

A governor stands at the podium, an interpreter makes signs.

In Los Angeles, the homeless gather in hotels.

Jane Fonda in whiteface dressed as the Easter bunny

looks into the eye of a camera.

In a silver jacket and orange pants, Michael Jackson

floats across a blue stage. 

The Co-Ed killer wanders an empty campus and finds no prey.
Dressed in gray, Lana Clarkson wakes after a long sleep.

Phil Spector falls to his knees.

The voice of John Prine echoes across the hills of Tennessee.
A priest baptizes a baby with a toy water gun.
He maintains his social distance. Is it all fake news?

Was the Covid-19 virus manufactured in a lab or the bloodstream of a bat?

Are vampires real? 
Was Jon Benet Ramsey murdered by an alien cult?

Is the land in China round or flat?

In a pink Cadillac, a woman sings.

Flights are no longer grounded; the dead have wings.

A Ventriloquist Holds Out An Empty Hand

Headlines flash across the screen.

All the monsters 
wear the same mask.

All the shadows gather

just outside

the hospital walls.

Refrigerated trucks whir 
and rumble in Manhattan 

and Long Island.

Death comes in waves.

Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe 

share one last kiss.

A ventriloquist holds out 
an empty hand.

The lights come back on in the city

while the world wakes
hooked on a ventilator

and breathes with half a lung.