No complaint or mourning will change what’s happened
so what do we do in the wake—?

What can we make of machines & shredded sky—
torn curtains for the wake—

or a bed on which a sleeper lies, plutonium lace
that billows and glows upon waking.

The craving for a holy place, rumbling
in a crevice, wakes

the root of a constant ache, reveals it at last
as grief swelling in the wake

of war as it turns toward us, guided
by the beacon of our waking

fear—but there I go with consequence again.
What lies beyond this wakeful

anxiety? Odd, how dreams stain the days
that greet them. A strange song we sang awakens.