Night Letters (November 2020)

Dear—
Washed out haze
of nights with Saturn and Jupiter
blazing like faces distant enough
to be safe How can they be
other worlds I ask myself all the time
without ever asking it to see my way
out of darkness
I’ll tell you plainly
a neighbor I’ve never seen walked out
of his house with a shotgun and shot
through teachers’ cars parked at the school
between us his house kitty-corner from mine
cats and pigeons hunched together at the curb
outside his house all I knew of him some truce
between them to sit like that fed on
whatever he unseen put out
I wasn’t home
that morning my neighbors and the internet
offering scraps of that hour the masked
woman walking her dog his voice caustic
across the open air screaming communists
I’m gonna start the next Civil War
He did not come for her as he said
he would no body in the line of fire
the bullets’ path into metal and across
the playground emptied for months
teachers sheltering in a bathroom inside
Over the bullhorn the police negotiator
did her work calm coaxing
him to walk out again
For weeks after
the landlord hauled out garbage a ghost
turned out onto the curb
for everyone to see the neighbor
still in custody remote as any light
I cannot reach I pray then neglect my prayers
for him for the school for neighbors I see
never or daily
Today I walked out
and saw Venus and Mercury those steady
lights against dawn and I watched
for them to fade
Wondering,