I make the bed,
as if the covers being straight
and pillows nestled perfectly by width and length
will obliterate the rapid-fire bulletins
flying through my head. Curfews
was the last one I heard.
I know I heard that,
even with my tinnitus at full volume.
Curfews.
Curfews. A college word.
I used to escape from my dorm nightly
once the girls in 202 allowed me to
use their window to get into the church next door
and I brought back a surprise from the streets.
Curfews.
My pieces and parts are no longer so free.
Oldish body sets boundaries.
Now, again. I am inside. Curfews.
Curfews. So, where is there to go anyhow?
Isn’t that what a keyboard & screen are for,
the voices shout?
Concerts, films, poetry,
Europe, Asia, Africa, Canada
are now local
without using drugs
unless they are called meds.
And now it looks the same, everywhere.
Fires. Yelling. Dying children.
Familiar.
What year is this?
My shadow weeps for me.
Curfews.
So in my rural Georgia fiefdom,
in a house caught between being moved out of
and lived in,
I write,
upstairs in my hideout,
in dead quiet,
in a room that has two windows
ghosted among trees I can no longer climb into.
Curfew,
I heard curfew.
I will find a way out.
