for L.R.

And it’s not like you coul've heard me a year later –
the moment twenty-one guns shook Chestnut Street,
through the chains to my lawn.

     And it's not like you heard
my feet shift in the grass, the black covers of your last book
split.

         It's not like I knew where the long horns flowed from –
a flat stretch of sand, post-hurricane –  drowned in the wake
of other bullets and black veils and ties and rifle shells
scattered on the dirt like they, too, were lost as hell;

like all we had to do was clean up, and it would be over;
like the grass never leaned on the concrete sidewalks,
a good lump building in its throat.

           And why, suddenly,
I was calm in the middle of gunfire, I'll never know. You
won't either, though I'm quite certain you’ve felt it,
black wings ready for flight.