A veteran slumped in a midnight
doorway was trained to kill, so killed,
and killing banished sleep.
A hurt child, now thirty-two, who
never had the food he needed, haunted
by his father’s blows, shoots meth.
A mother abused as a girl, can’t
speak of it, shuns touch, can’t trust
any boy her own girl brings home.
A nation, founded by the shot heard
round the world, prevailing at Hiroshima,
can’t understand our daily massacres
as if a gun were not a war in small,
strife undeclared but flaring sudden,
as one thing becomes another.
A life? Kind words and gentle gestures?
Planting seeds and seeking peace?
Where could that lead?
This appears in the March 2020 issue of Sojourners
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