day SIX HUNDRED and TWELVE

Crossing Guards

Where two streets meet, busily, bodily,
between a park and a school - houses
too, like fish flipping on shore then still
and having made themselves line up
into rows with their final gasps of death.
Do you see it? My distaste for adverbs
and this precarious scene? I hear “Right Place Wrong Time” by Dr John in the air
and know intuitively someone honorable
and giving needs to be in charge, someone attentive and bright. Jimmy Carter and
Barack Obama would make good crossing guards. Keep us safe, and the joggers, the dog-walkers, and the children - please the children too. Not Pence. Not 45.

--Paul Koniecki