SENTINEL POETRY #26 Online Magazine Monthly, January 2005

JOHN SWEET

season of glass

this idea of mortality

the different ways you hurt people

and the ease with which

you can be reduced

to being human

someone’s teenage daughter

caught by a surveillance camera

filmed talking to a stranger

and then his hand tight around her arm

and then she’s gone

two days missing and then three

and then the snow gives way

to a brilliant blue sky

dirt streaks the windows

the shadows of objects

spilling blue

across silent back yards

beauty

but always with the threat

of something darker underneath

pools of water

but always stained by oil

the sound of the highway from

across the river

or a passing train on the

other side of town

violence at a safe distance

this homeless man drunk

and passed out on the tracks

his name

which i never know

each life defined

by how easily it ends

The geography of nowhere: a continuation

the walls cold to the touch

and rain against the windows

in the soft buzz of 2 a.m.

the shadows of ghosts

the steady weight

of unpaid bills

of middle-aged men on top of

young girls in rooms filled

with harsh white light

mothers asleep and

fathers dead and

cars on the interstate

the thought of escape

the taste it leaves

a different form of

starvation

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