Young News

The birds sound more human
than us tonight.

The street: a black snake squeezing
empty shops, a dark whiskey
no one drinks.

The trees look burned
with bird wings, murmuring back
and forth in starling.

A peacock in the park answers the wail
of police sirens. We say nothing.
On the news we saw

a child picked
like a cherry; spit out
like a stone
in a field. We saw a man

sliced in half
by hell on eighteen wheels, and another
blowing himself
up into pulp.

Now, cherry juice makes us think
of child’s blood, of men turned

inside out. We sink our thorns of thought
into pillows and outlaw talk.

The birds sound more human
than us tonight as they shiver the trees
for hours.

The street: a black snake squeezing
our hearts as we struggle
to fall back asleep.

Header photograph © K Weber.