I
How to feel his death? On the street.
The shots. My friend’s scream.
One cracked the air, the other
pierced the thin veil, a usual evening
returning from somewhere,
returned from many times before.
When I look for where to fix the broken city that I love,
the whole tower wobbles. What the government hasn’t done.
What the gunmen’s’ parents didn’t do. What hands the drug lords forced.
What? What I haven’t done with my puny song?
And now: the sirens.
And now: the neighbors say, “Did he resist?”
And now: how can I live in this place or any place?
Can I live with myself—a part of his self, lying there,
a part of the selves who dropped him there.
All of us, under the wing that is no wing.
II
In my mind-voice, without knowing why
or from where it came, a whisper:
“When the wing gives way…”
“When the wing gives way…”
I want to be more ready than I am today.
Ready to let what is left lift me, draw me into meanings
that will shatter me more than this.
