The woman held the child in her arms
in front of the cardboard barracks
on whose wall
the graffiti read
CHARLIE GONNA BE A NAPALM STAR!
I thought the world was
a bucket of dirty laundry
that a great fiery ball
will forever merge with silence
and then I hit the gas
a moment later everything turned to oblivion
last night I dreamed
they stole all my sweaters
and set them on fire
and I was cold
terribly cold under the crown
of the old plane tree that shed its bark
at the feet of chance passers-by
when I woke
I found this note:
you’re a nervous urban wreck
buried in pop culture trash
art is something you can run away with
but it’s just a daytrip from which
you must return
with ironed faces
the strong and mighty mimes
smirked from the election posters
as a reminder that life
never loses to amateurs
politics has a fake aura of innocence
only the marathon is
a triumph of mind over matter
just like at every first snow
I bummed around the town center
and watched the snowflakes
cover the drabness of
socialist architecture
raised my hands and turned the palms
up to the sky
so they’d remember the dance
of those white defenseless princesses