We get it, cracked window.
We get it, firsthand view
of the dingiest devastation.
And ballistics, we really get it.
And sons…no, we don’t get it.

But we’re the ones
who heard the gun-shot,
clambered down stairs
or up from basements,
screamed plaintive venom
from a stoop,
or ran aimlessly by
rows of broken, vacant houses,
raving hags stumbling blindly,
crazily, and in vain.

We get it, eternal gunman,
our flesh remembers the rigid nerves,
the heart by rote,
the mounting heat,
the sticking plaster air,
the unyielding sirens –
we get it a lot around here.

About the Author

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, City Brink and Tenth Muse. Latest books, “Subject Matters”,” Between Two Fires” and “Covert” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Hawaii Pacific Review, Amazing Stories and Cantos.