When will you be safe?
When, when the light
from geometric stars,
the same bunch, a tad
out of a straight line,
crowns my sight through
the window’s mouth,
will you make it home?

When, when my heart
leaps at every sound
in the immensity
of this no-electricity
primordial night,
my eyes mirrors
of my worst thoughts,
can I unclench my coil?

Will it follow the curve
of the possible outcomes
to the horizon where
the demons themselves
dissolve into the wake?
Even after the fact?
The history of broken
and patched up doors?

How many disasters
must befall a bridge
that has stood, tattered,
but more or less in use
from North to South,
faith to logical might,
from slanted eyes
to the shores of trade
in ill-gotten cure-all oil?


jam19