Elsewhere

It does not come easily. 
It takes years of learning to see ourselves
abandoned. The city is more April at night
than during the pale yellow day,
the dogwood blossoms luminous as
the false light of snow. All evening
the news flickers blue across the street.
And whose grief will I dream of tonight, here in
the borrowed safety of my well-rehearsed fears?
Our sidewalks are mined with tulips
blood red or bubble gum, bruised purple. 
We are not safe from ourselves, our
unflagging forgetfulness in the face of
children laughing, of our separate hungers,
what we call our lives. 

Elsewhere another war begins.