Any given day, the world is woozy with evil.
A forensic surgeon oversaw dismantling after;
the accounts say killers wore noise-canceling
headsets to mask the din the bone saw makes.
Is it any wonder that we’ve left off praying for
anything but our deliverance from such a place?
In the absence of Deity or justice the dead have
raptures of stars to rinse a dark earth in starlight.
The dark seemed foreshortened the first time I saw
the Northern Lights—emerald draperies broadened
above the cries of coyotes on Wisconsin marsh land.
A light show rooted in its location above the planet.
I knew where I had ended up when atmospheres
flowed like runoff to the river and out to the sea.
It isn’t so much another man has died for a cause.
It isn’t even that a republic of coyotes is singing.
It’s that all of us must answer for how we spend
the hour under the bright and ever-turning sky—
on recordings the Turkish authorities release
there are, first, raised voices. Then screams.
