cenotaph

For you're breathy as a kettle, 
in all of this ennui, this outrage
yet we sit blandly where people 
were dead--had been for ages.

We are the ones who are alleged 

to dust off the drifting ash before 
standoff, feel around for the edge 

of backlash, its puny incoherence.

But we listen; learning now how
all news is unbearable, how it all

allows us to be portals standing

impatient, indifferent, in disgrace.