clawing remarks raked across furrowed faces and force fed down closed mouths the push of surety sometimes needing the deadliest weapons from the soul’s arsenal to break through, burn and bludgeon force the enemy to flee, surrender or cry so much collateral damage, this meadow that used to be green-grassed and flowered, now an ashen wasteland, the same place you used to lay and wish on stars, rise together and say goodnight to that Mona Lisa moon

from my living room window, above my lilac’s purple blooms and between the welcome spread of a pair of oaks, a snow-capped mountain like a whipped dessert, is the view I lick, while below and surrounding me lies the burned carcasses of homes with gravestones of chimneys I live untouched, inside an ashen oasis of death, lonely for noise - two dogs barking at each other a loud late-night pool party the squeal of someone else’s brakes a sneeze that’s not mine the mockingbird’s

scratching for not just any old stone but the one that matches a perfect bouquet of flowers, the raven chooses his gift from the display in the sand and drops it at her ankles her turn to examine it and gurgle a slightly embarrassed thank you before they fly off to enjoy a nice dinner, or maybe skip the formalities and find an open-air motel and get busy banging feathers