The War of 1991

A cloud gathers behind the windows, fogging the glass. The glass curves, like an exit lane, but there is no exit. The cloud goes nowhere, degrading into fog. Pressure; building, and building. The atoms excite; heat. The fog is oppressive; the room is a steam engine. Pounding; the atoms push against the window pane, one by one by one. The curvature creaks in complaint against the pressure. A scream of white flags sliver and snake across the pane. There is release.

We creep through the cracks like children let out of school. The air is open. We run through the streets to see every windowsill decorated with broken glass. The barriers between the internal and external are now permeable. We’ve learned to let the open air inside like a lost stray. Century-old portraits on the mantle now weather more rapidly, but the faces look younger.

7:20, PM: a boy sits on the porch with a head cold. As he sits, the fog crawls slowly back through the windows and his eyes grow red. I sit across the street and dully rub my own burning eyes. All down the road, from this coast to the next, we red-eyed youths sit on our porches beside a plastic bag of medicines, unable to sleep because the fog has crept from the window to our beds.

Sunset from the Window

I’ve never really seen the sun.

Walking between the concrete

prison bars we call buildings,

I’m occasionally struck by a beam.

But it’s only the

 

reflection

of a reflection

of another reflection

bounding from window to window

like a child wandering alone

in the produce section.

 

And maybe that’s what I am –

just a boy, like everyone tells me.

I’ve refused to believe it for years,

shouted at patronizing naysayers,

believing instead that I’m the only

adult in a child’s world. But this

is a concrete world – an adult’s world.

 

I must be a child, looking for fields,

flowers, trees to climb. Looking

for the sun to bathe me instead of city water.

Looking for more than reflections

 

of glory.