Poem-A-Day #323 : Amber Alert

Amber Alert

Across the restaurant phones begin to siren
a child has been kidnapped
people glance          silence
               some read

A woman mumbles
she thought she had turned it off
she shows her friends how to turn it off

White sedan with New Mexico license plates
tinted windows

The child is 5          was wearing red
               shoes that light up

Normalcy returns
near immediate
a few moments and a single phone
repeats the sound

A muffle in someone's bag
embarrassed to be there
               no one looks up

And it must be ok
because within 8 hours they find them
they arrest the man
               the child goes home

It must be
because despite no one helping
everything went well

Poem-A-Day #183 : Zeus in New Mexico

Zeus in New Mexico

The lid of the sky
and the lid of the ground

A half-open eye

The copper stream of tears
reverses itself

The day is a statue unearthed
in a field after millennia

It is missing its body

Its hand is missing fingers

In the cataract
milky self-rorschach of shadows

This thing sees you
and now seen you exist

The view from my patio