1985

The world's long fires burn beyond

your window. You stir, arrange your pens,

write your notes to distant friends,

who hear-no less than you-the crash

of beams, the shouts and sirens. Brave

or cowardly, you want your friends

to answer for the violence

that rumbles under your pen, that shakes

your signature askew. The world's

black smoke has made a line you thought

your own, a hand you can't control

by will or diligent erasure.